Ask an out-of-towner to list Calgary trademarks, and you’ll receive myriad responses: The Stampede. A diminutive tower, dwarfed by half-completed condo developments and cloud-licking skyscrapers. An NHL captain vaguely resembling a beluga whale. But in an interview earlier this year, Liam Cormier, vocalist for Toronto metalcore outfit Cancer Bats, came to a very different conclusion.

“It’s Tubby Dog,” he said without hesitation. “Whenever we come to Calgary, all the guys in the band want to go there. Among touring bands in Canada, they all love to go eat or play there. It’s definitely Tubby Dog.”

That reputation isn’t without qualification. Damian Abraham, singer of Fucked Up and host of MuchMusic’s revamped The Wedge, has a legendary taste for the restaurant’s Sumo Dog (a hot dog with Japanese mayo, wasabi, pickled ginger and toasted sesame seeds). Elton John, after a trip to Calgary, reportedly catered an entire jet with their hot dogs. Quintron was so impressed that its braintrust, Robert Rolston, sent an appreciative card months after his Cowtown performance. Even the Globe and Mail got in on the love, naming its signature creation, Sherm’s Ultimate Gripper, one of Canada’s must-taste hot dogs.

Indeed, in its six years, the 17th Avenue junk-food emporium has become more than a Calgary gastronomic institution — it’s become Canada’s worst-kept secret. Surprisingly, though, that’s not the focus of Tubby Doc, local filmmaker Sara Hughes’s debut offering. Rather, she focuses not on Tubby Dog’s cultural contributions, but the culture of the restaurant itself. Yet whether she set out to create a band doc, food porn (or bukkake, considering its subject matter) or a buddy flick, this much is clear: Hughes has stumbled upon a veritable piece of Calgary punk-rock anthropology.

‘A NEVER-ENDING ART PROJECT’

Capturing the essence of Tubby Dog — a family-friendly restaurant to some, an all-ages venue to others, and to others still, a guilty-pleasure playhouse replete with 90210 marathons and Street Fighter II webcasts — is no small task.

“Tubby Dog is its own entity,” says founder and former Night Gallery bartender Jon Truch. “Some restaurants are like, ‘We wanna be a diner!’ And they wear stupid paper hats and put up posters of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis. We never wanted that. [To me], it’s a never-ending art project.”

To others, such as Faux Fur and Gooeys member J.S. Audet, it’s an all-ages music hub that filled the void that Comrad Sound’s closure left in 2010. “A year ago, I never went to Tubby Dog,” muses Audet. “The first time I went there, I played. They didn’t pay us, but they gave us food, which was great, because I couldn’t afford it.... Not many of my friends my age are into the music scene, but there’s a big high school scene built [at Tubby Dog] from St. Mary’s and Western along with the downtown-living adults that go there.”

And to others still, such as manager-show promoter Jane Trash, it’s an all-inclusive community. “It’s a tiny seed that rolled and developed,” she says. “We have the best staff in town, even if we can’t pay top dollar to have them here. Me and Jon Truch graduated from ACAD, and we’ve always had a lot of artists and musicians working here. But it doesn’t exclude anyone. The older crowd still comes down, the shy kids come to play Street Fighter — everyone feels welcome.”

But as Hughes explains, Tubby Doc’s goal is simple: It’s meant to display the joy of being at Tubby Dog. “If it captures how sweet it is, I’m happy,” she says, “I wanted to film my friends — I think they’re hilarious! —and, if nothing else, have a sweet video about their sweet bands.”

ANTHROPOLOGY 101

If Hughes seems deferential, it’s not intentional. Trained at the Los Angeles Film School — where she served as Zoolander producer Adam Schroeder’s assistant, sent flowers to Martin Scorsese and rubbed shoulders with the Friends cast — and a longtime admirer of Stephen Spielberg’s ET, she says she stumbled onto Tubby Dog serendipitously.

“When I moved back to Calgary in 2007, lots of my friends had left,” she says. “And the friends I met all hung out at Tubby Dog. I was temping at oil companies then, and I hated it — I wanted to do something creative. And I always wanted to do a DIY documentary — something that wasn’t forced, where you wouldn’t have to hire actors.”

So, call Tubby Doc a field study. Armed with a seven-year-old camera and a copy of Final Cut Pro (“It cost $0,” she laughs. “The only thing we spent money on were the posters”), Hughes set up weekly at Tubby Dog, capturing candid interviews, band performances and staff goof-offs. “I didn’t start filming it because I thought something would happen,” she adds. “I was filming it because I was there all the time.”

Innocent enough. But in the process, she accumulated hours of footage: She was behind the bar during Monotonix’s legendary, venue-destroying Sled Island performance. She obtained tape of a couple getting hitched at Tubby Dog. And she even pestered restaurant designer Craig Badke for proto-Tubby footage from its origins at the Night Gallery — perhaps making Tubby Doc the restaurant’s de facto creation story.

“There’s so much footage I didn’t use, so many great interviews,” she says. “I had to cut a bunch of stuff out that was slowing it down, or wasn’t pertinent.”

But hours logged aside, Tubby Doc never feels like a statement — its charm is purely experiential. Hughes adds that the film’s rawness — all shaky camerawork, blown-out audio and unpolished narrative — was intentional: Whether in pressing up to a packed White Lung performance or preparing an A-Bomb hot dog, Tubby Doc is meant to envelop viewers in the restaurant’s mystique. And that, says Hughes, is reward enough — and surely, Damian Abraham, Liam Cormier and Elton John would agree.

“I wanted to re-create the esthetic of Tubby Dog,” she says. “To me, it’s like the Peach Pit, which I always wanted to see, because I was a huge fan of 90210. There’s no place like it.”

SIDEBAR / ONLINE: Timeline: Promoter Jane Trash’s five wildest Tubby Dog shows

• Knucklehead, February 2009 — “It was like being 13 again! It was packed, even though it was the winter. Kids were moshing, knocking everything off the wall and crowd-surfing in the middle of the restaurant!”

• Tubby Day, Tompkins Park, June 2009 — “Ramblin’ Ambassadors, Spastic Panthers, Hot Little Rocket, Rum Runner and Sharp Ends played — it was an all-day, free event. There was hot dog and punk rock in the park, much to the disappointment of the fancy stores. Watching [Spastic Panthers singer] Dan Izzo sing and dance in Tomkins Park, with little kids eating hot dogs and parents looking horrified — it was amazing!”

• Monotonix, Sled Island 2009 — “I spent six hours plastic-wrapping the entire place, because we knew they’d destroy it,” laughs Trash. “That we weren’t shut down, or that the police and fire marshalls didn’t show up is amazing. [Singer Ami Shalev] gave himself an enema with a water bottle, then switched it out with a mustard bottle!” When asked what the Tubby Dog crew did with the mustard, she deadpans: “We burned it.”

• GOBBLE GOBBLE, Sled Island 2011 — “I’m speechless. It was just so amazing. It was a rave in the middle of the day, in my restaurant. I’m not into that stuff, but I was totally into it,” says Trash. “I thought the floor was going to cave in. One of our staff is a nurse, and she doesn’t smoke, but she went out for a cigarette, she was so stressed.”

• Sabertooth LP release, July 2011 — “Sabertooth is amazing. Plus, they played with Point Break and Mossleigh, who play here so much, they’re pretty well our house bands. Those boys are so sweet — they bring in so many bands, and they’re so appreciative that whenever they want to do something with us, we never say no.”