Cincinnati chili began in 1922 as a spiced meat sauce for hot dogs, served at a small stand run by two immigrant brothers. A century later, the dish is a regional identity, ordered by number: two-way, three-way, four-way and five-way.
The family tree runs from the Empress parlor to Skyline and Gold Star, which together have more than 200 restaurants. Here is how the dish started, what the “ways” mean and who built the chains.
A hot dog sauce from Greece by way of Vine Street
Tom and John Kiradjieff emigrated in 1921 from Hrupishta, now Argos Orestiko, Greece, according to Wikipedia’s Cincinnati chili article. In 1922, they served a Mediterranean-spiced stew as a hot dog topping at a stand next to the Empress burlesque theater, which gave the business its name. The topped hot dogs became known as coneys.
Cincinnati Magazine dates the opening more precisely. It says the brothers opened the Empress Chili Parlor on Oct. 24, 1922, at 816 Vine Street, inside the Empress Burlesk Theater, according to its list of facts about the dish. Public radio station WVXU, in its own history of the chili, calls Tom a Macedonian immigrant.
The dish did not come from Texas. WVXU links it to the Greek pastitso and the meat sauce saltsa kima, both spiced with cinnamon, allspice and clove. Wikipedia’s entry on pastitsio describes the Greek baked pasta dish that Tom Kiradjieff’s spaghetti may have drawn on.
Food traditions often cross borders in this way, and 12 laws and rules about food in other countries shows how differently dishes are treated around the world.
Chili spaghetti and the first “ways”
Tom Kiradjieff created chili spaghetti, first cooking the pasta in the sauce and then switching to serving the sauce over it at customers’ request. Grated cheese was added later, also at customer request, according to Wikipedia. The brothers also created the “way” ordering system to speed up orders.
The sauce itself is thin, not the thick bean-and-tomato chili of the Southwest. Its ingredients include ground beef, tomato paste and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove, cumin, chili powder and bay leaf. A popular myth says it contains chocolate, but food writer Dann Woellert wrote in 2013 that no chili parlor in Cincinnati uses chocolate in its chili.
The same appetite for regional comfort food runs through a list of humble foods that even wealthy people eat, and many local favorites started as cheap, filling meals.
How the ways run from 2 to 5
The numbers describe how much is piled on top. Wikipedia lists the standard orders:
- Two-way: spaghetti and chili.
- Three-way: spaghetti, chili and cheese, the most popular order.
- Four-way: spaghetti, chili, cheese and either onions or beans.
- Five-way: spaghetti, chili, beans, onions and cheese.
There is no one-way, the article notes. Some parlors go further. Dixie Chili offers a six-way that adds chopped garlic, and Cincinnati Magazine says Delhi Chili once offered an eight-way. Ways and coneys are traditionally served in a shallow oval bowl with oyster crackers on the side.
Casual shared meals are a tradition in their own right, and one article explains how the Sunday family dinner faded.
Locals often eat it like a casserole, cutting bites with the side of the fork instead of twirling the noodles. Home cooks who like a slow-simmered pot can find ideas in a look at the traits of people who cook from scratch.
Cooks who want to try a version at home may pick up shortcuts from 20 clever kitchen tricks for home cooks.
Skyline and Gold Star grow the family tree
Empress was the largest chili parlor chain in Cincinnati until 1949. That year, a former Empress employee and Greek immigrant, Nicholas Lambrinides, founded Skyline Chili. As of 2015, Skyline had more than 130 locations, according to Wikipedia’s Skyline Chili article. WVXU says the chain began in Price Hill and has over 100 locations from Cincinnati to Florida.
Skyline made a business of grocery shelves too. Cincinnati Magazine says it sold the first frozen Cincinnati-style chili in local supermarkets in 1962 and added a canned version in 1966.
In 1965, the Daoud brothers, immigrants from Jordan, bought Hamburger Heaven from a former Empress employee. They renamed it Gold Star Chili after noticing that the chili outsold the hamburgers. Wikipedia’s Gold Star Chili article covers the chain, which had 89 locations as of 2015. Fahid Daoud, one of the founders, later opened Chili House in Jordan in 1985.
Empress itself shrank. It had only two locations left by 2015, down from more than a dozen at its peak.
A century of regional pride
The Cincinnati area has more than 250 chili parlors, counting chains and independents, according to Wikipedia. Cincinnatians eat more than 2,000,000 pounds of the chili each year, topped with 850,000 pounds of shredded cheddar, and the industry took in $250 million in 2014.
Independent shops have earned national recognition. Camp Washington Chili won a James Beard Foundation America’s Classics Award in 2000, and in 2013 the Smithsonian named it one of the “20 Most Iconic Food Destinations in America,” Wikipedia notes.
The dish has plenty of outside critics, and some visitors who expect a bowl of Texas chili are surprised. Locals often answer with a shrug: “Well, it’s not really chili.” The 1991 edition of Joy of Cooking suggested thinking of it as a Macedonian Bolognese sauce.
How to order it
For a first visit, the three-way is the standard. Add onions or beans for a four-way, or both for a five-way, and a cheese coney is the hot dog version. Oyster crackers and a mild hot sauce are usually on the table.
Behind each number is a story that began with two brothers, a burlesque theater and a hot dog stand in 1922.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Jason Zhang – CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons
