Joey Chestnut’s Hot Dog Eating Record Is Legendary

How many hot dogs can you eat in a sitting? Three? Four? Five? Maybe even 10? For Joey Chestnut, that’s barely getting started. For nearly 20 years, Chestnut has been speed-eating hot dogs in front of huge crowds, turning the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July contest into his personal show.

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His record at the competition is so wild that it’s difficult to imagine anyone coming close, let alone beating it. Chestnut once managed to eat more than seven hot dogs every minute for 10 straight minutes. And somehow, that still isn’t the craziest eating record he holds.

76 Hot Dogs In 10 Minutes

The Nathan’s contest gives competitors 10 minutes to eat as many hot dogs and buns as possible. Chestnut finished a total of 76 hot dogs in 2021, setting a Guinness World Record, and it was not even his first time setting the record.

Chestnut had already pushed the mark to 75 hot dogs in 2020. The following year, he added one more and reached 76. Guinness notes that the 2021 performance was also Chestnut’s 14th victory at the competition at that point. To put that into perspective, 76 hot dogs over 10 minutes works out to one hot dog roughly every eight seconds.

Chestnut has returned to the Nathan’s contest several times since setting it, but nobody has managed to push past 76 at the event.

Chestnut Has Been Dominating Nathan’s For Years

The 76-hot-dog performance did not come out of nowhere. Chestnut first competed at Nathan’s way back in 2005. Two years later, he won the contest for the first time by defeating reigning champion Takeru Kobayashi. That started a remarkable run for the competitive eater.

Chestnut went on to win eight straight Nathan’s titles from 2007 through 2014. Matt Stonie finally stopped that streak in 2015, beating Chestnut with 62 hot dogs and buns. Chestnut returned to the top in 2016 and continued adding championships to his name.

His career has had one unusual interruption. Chestnut did not compete in the Nathan’s contest in 2024, when Patrick Bertoletti won the men’s title. Chestnut came back in 2025 and immediately reclaimed the Mustard Belt, eating 70½ hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. That gave him his 17th Nathan’s championship. Then he did it again.

More Than One Record

Chestnut is not only famous hot dog records. In fact, he currently holds 55 eating records across different eating competitions.

His record list covers everything from chicken wings to pizza and plenty of foods you probably never expected to become part of a speed-eating competition.

He has continued setting new records in 2026. In May 2026, he ate 16lb of Bologna slices in 8 minutes at the Ultimate Bologna Showdown.

Still, the hot dog record has a special place in his career. Nathan’s contest is the event that made Chestnut a household name in competitive eating.

So, how many hot dogs can you eat in 10 minutes?