The peculiar regional specialty known as Cincinnati three-way chili—ground chuck simmered slowly with tomato and a mix of baking spices, plopped over spaghetti, and all covered with cheese—was invented by a pair of Macedonian restaurateurs trying to make a living in a city full of Germans. But Tony Plum says it’s pure coincidence that he located Cinners, his Cincinnati-themed bar specializing in the stuff, in a Greek pocket of the German neighborhood of Lincoln Square.
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Plum is a 38-year-old Cincinnati native who could pass for 15 years younger in his “Man Law: You poke it, you own it” T-shirt. “It’s all that clean living,” he laughs. “You have to smoke and drink a lot, apparently.” Plum, who grew up in Cincinnati’s Mount Healthy neighborhood, spent the last 20 years in the bar business, getting a job straight out of college with a company that franchised the America Live! multiclub adult theme parks. He traveled the country opening the venues and troubleshooting, but like many in the Cincinnati diaspora, he nursed a deep longing for the hometown bowl, which is pretty hard to come by anywhere else.
For his part, Plum sees little difference between the two big names. He used to hang out in a Gold Star after high school football games, but every time he returns home he goes to Skyline with his grandfather and father. No matter where he goes, “I don’t look at the menu,” he says. “I walk in and say, ‘Give me a three-way with two cheese Coneys.’ I usually do it without onions because your breath tends to be bad enough from the chili.”
“No,” says 78-year-old Joe Kiradjieff, son of Tom, who still sells Empress Chili to supermarkets and franchises the restaurants, ten of which remain. “They didn’t give it out. No, sir. No way. Uh-uh. No. I don’t think my father would do anything like that. Or my uncle.” Kiradjieff did offer to sell his chili to Plum. He thinks it would go over big in Chicago.
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