May 31, 20187 yr A lot of these things where a city, state or region have been recently added to foods have been created by branding people. Nashville is just the most high-profile one.
May 31, 20187 yr A lot of these things where a city, state or region have been recently added to foods have been created by branding people. Nashville is just the most high-profile one. Cincinnati Chili is probably the king of true regional American foods. People actually eat it all the time, unlike the various regional foods that are eaten mostly by tourists. Also, the Hot Mett is little-known outside the Cincinnati/Great Lakes region. Like, people haven't even heard the word "mett". There is definitely an opportunity for a brander to simply start calling them "Ohio Hot Mett" or something like that.
May 31, 20187 yr Also, the Hot Mett is little-known outside the Cincinnati/Great Lakes region. Like, people haven't even heard the word "mett". There is definitely an opportunity for a brander to simply start calling them "Ohio Hot Mett" or something like that. I've never heard them referred to as "Hot Metts" only "Metts".
May 31, 20187 yr The branding problem with Cincinnati chili is that it's pretty much only nationally known for looking like excrement. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
May 31, 20187 yr I've never heard them referred to as "Hot Metts" only "Metts". I've only occasionally heard them called "hot metts" in Cincinnati, but I have seen them listed as such on menus further north. I know I've seen them listed on menus as "Mettwurst", but I couldn't tell you where. My grandmas still say "Bratwust" with a v-German sound, and never say "brat". I think there has been a steady push away from German pronunciations in Cincinnati because it reminds people of their square relatives.
May 31, 20187 yr It was just announced that Nation won the RFP to open a restaurant in the fire station in Westwood:
May 31, 20187 yr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince%27s_Hot_Chicken_Shack So they added the word Nashville to the front recently for branding purposes. That doesn't mean it isn't real, or that it didn't originate in Nashville. It's still a regional dish, even if it was mostly among the black community until a few years ago.
May 31, 20187 yr I've never heard them referred to as "Hot Metts" only "Metts". I've only occasionally heard them called "hot metts" in Cincinnati, but I have seen them listed as such on menus further north. I know I've seen them listed on menus as "Mettwurst", but I couldn't tell you where. My grandmas still say "Bratwust" with a v-German sound, and never say "brat". I think there has been a steady push away from German pronunciations in Cincinnati because it reminds people of their square relatives. Hot mett is just a mettwurst with spices. They sell the variation at Findlay Market, Great American Ballpark, and multiple golf courses I frequent on the east side and in Northern Kentucky. https://www.queencitysausage.com/index.php/article/top-selling-products-2/
May 31, 20187 yr A lot of these things where a city, state or region have been recently added to foods have been created by branding people. Nashville is just the most high-profile one. Cincinnati Chili is probably the king of true regional American foods. People actually eat it all the time, unlike the various regional foods that are eaten mostly by tourists. Also, the Hot Mett is little-known outside the Cincinnati/Great Lakes region. Like, people haven't even heard the word "mett". There is definitely an opportunity for a brander to simply start calling them "Ohio Hot Mett" or something like that. I'd say this is all true, but I'd add the Philly Cheesesteak as another true regional food. Sure, you can get something called a Philly Cheesesteak anywhere in the country but it won't taste anything like what you get in Philly. I'd also throw in pork roll for NJ and scrapple for Southeast PA/Delaware. And of course scrapple's close cousin from Cincinnati, goetta. I don't think anyone knows what goetta is even an hour drive from Cincy.
May 31, 20187 yr ^ In my experience, black Cincinnatians are really into hot metts. I hadn't heard of them until high school, actually.
May 31, 20187 yr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince%27s_Hot_Chicken_Shack So they added the word Nashville to the front recently for branding purposes. That doesn't mean it isn't real, or that it didn't originate in Nashville. It's still a regional dish, even if it was mostly among the black community until a few years ago. It's not a regional dish. It's something that 2-3 very small restaurants that nobody had ever heard of had on the menu. I had had "hot" or Cajun chicken from similar places before. It's like saying the Bahama Mama is a "regional dish" in Columbus. I'd wager that the majority of people in Columbus have never been to Schmidt's and don't know what the hell a Bahama Mama is.
May 31, 20187 yr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince%27s_Hot_Chicken_Shack So they added the word Nashville to the front recently for branding purposes. That doesn't mean it isn't real, or that it didn't originate in Nashville. It's still a regional dish, even if it was mostly among the black community until a few years ago. It's not a regional dish. It's something that 2-3 very small restaurants that nobody had ever heard of had on the menu. I had had "hot" or Cajun chicken from similar places before. It's like saying the Bahama Mama is a "regional dish" in Columbus. I'd wager that the majority of people in Columbus have never been to Schmidt's and don't know what the hell a Bahama Mama is. No, that's not correct at all. It's a regional dish that has been served in dozens of restaurants throughout black neighborhoods in Nashville for decades. Just because white people didn't know or care about it until very recently doesn't make it less of a regional dish.
May 31, 20187 yr It was not dozens. It was 2 or 3 at the most. We're talking at most 50 hot chickens per week. The places serve other kinds of food. The hot chicken was just one menu item. Other cities had restaurants with hot chicken. I know because I had it decades (literally) before NASHVILLE hot chicken was invented by the convention & visitor's bureau. There are at least 50 Cincinnati chili locations in the Cincinnati area. Everybody who grows up in Cincinnati eats chili, regardless of class or creed. We had 3-way day in our school cafeteria 2-3 times per month. That is a regional food. Incidentally, we used to put mustard on 3-ways all the time when I was a kid. That detail seems to have disappeared.
June 1, 20187 yr I had to Google "Hot Mett." That is worse than that "Creamy Whip" thing you have down there. Christ. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 1, 20187 yr This is hilarious. They somehow ended up at the Monfort Heights Skyline, which is a converted Pizza Hut. That location used to be in the strip mall across the street.
June 1, 20187 yr Also, the Hot Mett is little-known outside the Cincinnati/Great Lakes region. Like, people haven't even heard the word "mett". There is definitely an opportunity for a brander to simply start calling them "Ohio Hot Mett" or something like that. I had no idea the "hot mett" was an unknown outside of this area. I always call any type of spicy hot dog type sausage a "mett." I distinctly remember calling them that when I had a place in Queens with a little back yard and a grill - people must have assumed I was making some sort of weird baseball joke.
June 1, 20187 yr I have always wondered where greek chili truly orginated from. As far as I know though, thowing it on spaghetti is unique Cincinnati.
June 1, 20187 yr I had no idea the "hot mett" was an unknown outside of this area. I always call any type of spicy hot dog type sausage a "mett." I distinctly remember calling them that when I had a place in Queens with a little back yard and a grill - people must have assumed I was making some sort of weird baseball joke. The first time I had a hint that metts were a regional food was when I was in Knoxville and the person I was talking to in McDonald's said they had never heard of what I was talking about. I walked over and asked the security guard and he had never heard the word either. This is before phones so it wasn't like I could show them a picture. I remember being confused by the NY Mets when I was a kid. I didn't know it was short for "Metropolitans", but I was pretty sure it wasn't short for "Mettwurst" either.
June 1, 20187 yr I have always wondered where greek chili truly orginated from. As far as I know though, thowing it on spaghetti is unique Cincinnati. Alot of the food on the Mediterranean is shared between countries. If you go to Greece, you can get pasta bolognese (pasta with meat sauce), which is actually what Cincinnati Chili is. The unique thing is actually the cheddar cheese, not the pasta.
June 1, 20187 yr I have a book called Essays In Comparative Studies 1983 published by OSU which has a chapter on the "Cincinnati Chili Complex". I don't have it here, but the gist was that it was indeed invented in Cincinnati by Lebanese who had moved from New York City. It was always intended as a dish to sell rather than being something that a certain cohort ate for a long time prior to efforts to monetize it.
June 1, 20187 yr I hate how chained a lot of the places downtown and in OTR have gotten. Really takes away the originality of the places when you can go to another location in the burbs or in another city. It was just announced that Nation won the RFP to open a restaurant in the fire station in Westwood:
June 1, 20187 yr I have a book called Essays In Comparative Studies 1983 published by OSU which has a chapter on the "Cincinnati Chili Complex". I don't have it here, but the gist was that it was indeed invented in Cincinnati by Lebanese who had moved from New York City. It was always intended as a dish to sell rather than being something that a certain cohort ate for a long time prior to efforts to monetize it. It looks like Empress Chili, which is the original Cincinnati chili parlor, is down to just two locations. One on Werk Rd. in Westwood and the other in Alexandria, KY (incidentally, I was once chased by a mad dog while bicycling in front of that location). The one in Hartwell has closed.
June 1, 20187 yr I have a book called Essays In Comparative Studies 1983 published by OSU which has a chapter on the "Cincinnati Chili Complex". I don't have it here, but the gist was that it was indeed invented in Cincinnati by Lebanese who had moved from New York City. It was always intended as a dish to sell rather than being something that a certain cohort ate for a long time prior to efforts to monetize it. It looks like Empress Chili, which is the original Cincinnati chili parlor, is down to just two locations. One on Werk Rd. in Westwood and the other in Alexandria, KY (incidentally, I was once chased by a mad dog while bicycling in front of that location). The one in Hartwell has closed. I get Empress Chili at The Squirrel on Walnut St in downtown. I'm not sure what the ownership/business relationship is between The Squirrel and Empress... but I know I can get Empress there. And it is tastey. http://squirrelnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/squirrel-back-2018-final.pdf
June 1, 20187 yr I have a book called Essays In Comparative Studies 1983 published by OSU which has a chapter on the "Cincinnati Chili Complex". I don't have it here, but the gist was that it was indeed invented in Cincinnati by Lebanese who had moved from New York City. It was always intended as a dish to sell rather than being something that a certain cohort ate for a long time prior to efforts to monetize it. I came across a book called "The Authentic History of Cincinnati Chilli" at the library a couple years ago, it's a pretty quick easy read but gets into a lot of the nitty gritty details if that's what you're into.
June 1, 20187 yr Compare "Nashville Hot" against actual regional food: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=nashville%20hot%20chicken,Cincinnati%20Chili,Italian%20Beef,garbage%20plate (Italian Beef is going up in popularity due to Als opening up locations in LA)
June 1, 20187 yr ^That's an awesome graph. Cincinnati Chilli outdoes Nashville Hot Chicken in most states if not all except Tennessee. Italian Beef, I had to look that up because I couldn't remember what it is. I remember eating this in Iowa all the time, they served it for lunch at school with the au jois sauce. I didn't think it was a special type of regional food, we ate it all the time. The Iowa special though is Maid-Rite, holy cow I miss those. I think there are a few locations in Ohio but none in Cincinnati. I can taste it now, complete satisfaction. Cedar Rapids had this super old, crappy restaurant. It was next to the river and I alwasy remember going when I was younger with my dad and brothers and it smelling strongly of fish, being close to the river. I think it got flooded out in 2008 in the massive flood and I don't know if they rebuilt. That area is super run down now, more so than ever before since it hasn't really recovered that well after the flood. Actually funny, still there: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.973959,-91.6804385,3a,75y,114.96h,88.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLR_iCS2GuzWvWuy369Zrgw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 More from Maid-Rite from Wikipedia: Angell was a butcher in Muscatine, Iowa, who combined a special cut and grind of meat with a selected set of spices and created the Maid-Rite sandwich, which is not a traditional hamburger. Rather, it is called a "loose meat" sandwich. While the component meat is similar, the Maid-Rite sandwich's meat is not formed into a patty, making it similar to a sloppy joe without the tomato-based sauce.
June 1, 20187 yr I didn't realize that the former Red Squirrel downtown is now just "The Squirrel". It appears that the only remaining Red Squirrel restaurant is the one on Colerain at Galbraith. I was there about a year ago and they still have never renovated or even cleaned the place since it opened around 1991.
June 1, 20187 yr The Iowa special though is Maid-Rite, holy cow I miss those. I think there are a few locations in Ohio but none in Cincinnati. I can taste it now, complete satisfaction. Cedar Rapids had this super old, crappy restaurant. The closest Maid-Rite is in Greenville, about an hour from Dayton. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
June 1, 20187 yr I had to Google "Hot Mett." That is worse than that "Creamy Whip" thing you have down there. Christ. Hot metts are just mett(wurst)s that have extra hot chili spices; you can get them hot or not (or sometimes extra hot, etc.). And metts are easily the most accessible of the Cincy foods to foreigners (of the Republic of Cincinnati). Chili and goetta are pretty weird. Goetta less so to people familiar with scrapple. I didn't realize metts were a Cincinnati thing until I tried finding them in New Jersey (including at a German butcher). Then I started googling them, and realizing that while the word mettwurst is used in other places, I couldn't find it being used for the same thing as in Cincy. German mettwurst is (at least usually) a spreadable sausage. The Netherlands has metworst, which is more like the German kind. I was trying to find metts at a Kroger in Columbus for my buddy's Memorial Day barbecue, but had no luck. Not sure if it was the Kroger or that you can't find them in Columbus. I see them around in Dayton, including at the Carillon Brewing Co.
June 1, 20187 yr Shoot and there isn't any reason for me to be up that way really, I actually passed by that town on my way to Grand Rapids for my cousin's wedding in January but didn't know a maid-rite was there. Damn the bad luck!!!!
June 1, 20187 yr The Iowa special though is Maid-Rite, holy cow I miss those. I think there are a few locations in Ohio but none in Cincinnati. I can taste it now, complete satisfaction. Cedar Rapids had this super old, crappy restaurant. The closest Maid-Rite is in Greenville, about an hour from Dayton. Was just about to say this. Maid-Rite "loose meat" sandwiches. I thought Greenville was the only place on earth with those. Also everyone who comes in sticks their gum to the outside of the restaurant. Its beautiful.
June 1, 20187 yr I had to Google "Hot Mett." That is worse than that "Creamy Whip" thing you have down there. Christ. Hot metts are just mett(wurst)s that have extra hot chili spices; you can get them hot or not (or sometimes extra hot, etc.). And metts are easily the most accessible of the Cincy foods to foreigners (of the Republic of Cincinnati). Chili and goetta are pretty weird. Goetta less so to people familiar with scrapple. I didn't realize metts were a Cincinnati thing until I tried finding them in New Jersey (including at a German butcher). Then I started googling them, and realizing that while the word mettwurst is used in other places, I couldn't find it being used for the same thing as in Cincy. German mettwurst is (at least usually) a spreadable sausage. The Netherlands has metworst, which is more like the German kind. I was trying to find metts at a Kroger in Columbus for my buddy's Memorial Day barbecue, but had no luck. Not sure if it was the Kroger or that you can't find them in Columbus. I see them around in Dayton, including at the Carillon Brewing Co. Ironically, I checked the Kroger near me at Austin Landing and didn't see any metts (and I was lookin' too!). Where did you find them around here aside from Carillon that I can try? I'm intrigued now...like when taestell[/member] took me to my first creamy whip! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 1, 20187 yr They sell 6-packs that mix brats and metts at Kroger, if you're unwilling to completely commit. But you're better off just getting some from a butcher shop or Findlay Market.
June 1, 20187 yr Findlay Market vendor opening Colombian restaurant, Latin market A Findlay Market vendor – one of the original tenants at the market's industrial kitchen for food entrepreneurs – is opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant with an attached market this summer. The Arepa Place is opening a restaurant and Latin market at 131 W. Elder St., adjacent to Findlay Market, where the Colombian food vendor got its start in 2016. Isis Arrieta-Dennis, who owns the Arepa Place with her husband Chris, told me she hopes to be open by the first week of July. More below: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/06/01/exclusive-findlay-market-vendor-opening-colombian.html "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 1, 20187 yr Pendleton's popular Nation Kitchen + Bar opening second location One of the first restaurants in Pendleton's now-thriving dining and entertainment corridor is expanding with a second location in a new part of the city. Nation Kitchen + Bar opened in June 2015 at 1200 Broadway in Pendleton. The Cincinnati Department of Community and Economic Development announced May 31 that it has selected Nation to open a new location in the Junietta Firehouse in Westwood as the outcome of a request for proposals. The unused firehouse sits at 3002 Junietta Ave. and has been vacant since 2013. No opening date has been set. More below: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/06/01/pendletons-popular-nation-kitchen-bar-opening.html "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 2, 20187 yr Pendleton's popular Nation Kitchen + Bar opening second location One of the first restaurants in Pendleton's now-thriving dining and entertainment corridor is expanding with a second location in a new part of the city. Nation Kitchen + Bar opened in June 2015 at 1200 Broadway in Pendleton. The Cincinnati Department of Community and Economic Development announced May 31 that it has selected Nation to open a new location in the Junietta Firehouse in Westwood as the outcome of a request for proposals. The unused firehouse sits at 3002 Junietta Ave. and has been vacant since 2013. No opening date has been set. More below: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/06/01/pendletons-popular-nation-kitchen-bar-opening.html Does anyone have any pics they can post of Nation and the Broadway block it's on? Google streetview's pics are from 2014 and it looks like there is construction on an empty space between buildings, but I don't know what was built. I didn't know anything about Pendleton and it looks like a fantastic neighborhood with great buildings and density. Thanks.
June 2, 20187 yr Pendleton's popular Nation Kitchen + Bar opening second location One of the first restaurants in Pendleton's now-thriving dining and entertainment corridor is expanding with a second location in a new part of the city. Nation Kitchen + Bar opened in June 2015 at 1200 Broadway in Pendleton. The Cincinnati Department of Community and Economic Development announced May 31 that it has selected Nation to open a new location in the Junietta Firehouse in Westwood as the outcome of a request for proposals. The unused firehouse sits at 3002 Junietta Ave. and has been vacant since 2013. No opening date has been set. More below: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/06/01/pendletons-popular-nation-kitchen-bar-opening.html Does anyone have any pics they can post of Nation and the Broadway block it's on? Google streetview's pics are from 2014 and it looks like there is construction on an empty space between buildings, but I don't know what was built. Thanks. Jake has a photo of it in this thread, though it's from last year. https://www.urbanohio.com/forum/index.php/topic,17546.120.html
June 2, 20187 yr Google Street View is acting a little weird in Pendleton due to all of the construction, but here's the exterior of the finished restaurant: https://goo.gl/maps/tJSKrZv5wZC2
June 2, 20187 yr I have always wondered where greek chili truly orginated from. As far as I know though, thowing it on spaghetti is unique Cincinnati. Alot of the food on the Mediterranean is shared between countries. If you go to Greece, you can get pasta bolognese (pasta with meat sauce), which is actually what Cincinnati Chili is. The unique thing is actually the cheddar cheese, not the pasta. Good point about the cheese but I wouldn't discount the spaghetti. I cant think of any other city/region where they put greek/cincy chili on spaghetti. Also remember that no one in the old world is putting bolognese, meat sauce or any other heavy sauce on spaghetti. You need thicker cuts, shapes or stuff with ridges to hold it. Its likely spaghetti was used because it was the most accessible in the new world. And the same goes for bolognese, marinara, etc. My guess with Greek chili is someone (Greek, Lebanese, insert other ethnicity), somewhere (Cincinnati, East Coast) had a stock pot of extra left over moussaka meat sauce and started putting on other stuff. My moms family is from Athens Gr. They came here sometime before the War and settled in Kane, PA a small town outside Warren. There was a small Greek restaurant already established there, that put Greek chili on hot hogs and other stuff. Texas Hot. I'm remembering a date of 1910 or something like that for that place. Kane is small, i'm assuming they weren't the first to start doing it. It could be Cincinnati, i'm not trying to take that away from you guys! I just really like food and find this stuff interesting.
June 2, 20187 yr Where did Steak n Shake get the idea for doing chili on spaghetti? They're from Illinois so they don't have any real link to the Cincinnati region, and yet they have Cincinnati-style chili-on-spaghetti on their menus for some reason. The chili they use is different from "Skyline-style" though, probably closer to a Detroit-style chili, if anything. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
June 2, 20187 yr I think another good measure for whether a food is truly "hyper-regional" is whether or not they have outposts in vacation destinations. Both Primanti's and Skyline have stores in Florida, far away from their core markets. I'd be willing to bet that both of these chains are supported almost entirely by ex-pats and retirees, which is a much different expansion strategy than the Hot Chicken thing. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
June 4, 20187 yr Ironically, I checked the Kroger near me at Austin Landing and didn't see any metts (and I was lookin' too!). Where did you find them around here aside from Carillon that I can try? I'm intrigued now...like when taestell[/member] took me to my first creamy whip! Y'know, I can't think of anywhere specific, and I might just be imagining I have seen them in Dayton stores since I've seen them at Carillon. I usually just get them from butchers in Cincy. The Germanfest Picnic website says they will have metts: http://www.daytongermanclub.org/?q=german-picnic Ok, I just spent too long searching the internet for butchers and such in Dayton that have them. This is such a weird phenomenon, because people who know what they are (mostly native Cincinnatians, I guess) think it is a typical German style of sausage, like Bratwurst, that you could find in a lot of different places, if not virtually everywhere. But even just up the road in Dayton there is hardly a trace of them.
June 4, 20187 yr So I'm not crazy! ...don't answer that. Or banned. Instant banishment! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 4, 20187 yr Frisch’s to open downtown location this week Frisch’s will return to downtown Cincinnati this week with the opening of a new restaurant inside Carew Tower. The Cincinnati-born eatery will host its grand opening event inside Carew Tower at 11 a.m. on Tuesday and officially open to the public at 6 a.m. on Wednesday. It marks the first time customers will be able to order a Big Boy at the counter in the Central Business District in 14 years. “We felt with the resurgence of Cincinnati, downtown and Frisch’s, and a historic building like Carew Tower, it seemed like the right time for us,” Frisch’s CEO Jason Vaughn previously told the Courier. “Downtown and Fountain Square are so family oriented, we wanted to take care of families at special events.” More below: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/06/04/frisch-s-to-open-downtown-location-this-week.html "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 5, 20187 yr Here are some photos of the new Frisch's: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/06/05/after-14-years-its-back-frischs-opening-in.html I'm glad they've (re)opened a downtown location, but I'm unimpressed with the interior design. It feels caught in an uncanny valley between modern and nostalgic. The fake wood floor tiles already look dated, and they don't look good next to the wood accent walls. I wish they'd just gone for a more straight-up diner/nostalgic vibe. In any case, I hope this location does well, and I'm glad downtown will have another option for early breakfasts (they open at 6am on weekdays).
June 5, 20187 yr The globe pendants are also already dated looking, but not nostalgic looking towards the diner era. We just renovated a dining hall and removed all the globe pendants that had been installed 5+ years ago. I will probably eat here, though with Hathaways across the hall they better step up their pie and breakfast game. I want the Frisch's to do well, especially with it filling that storefront along 5th street, but not too well so it puts Hathaways out of business.
June 5, 20187 yr That's definitely inaccurate. Trendy things are. You can design in a way that things last ages without feeling dated. We have retail clients who still build spaces, 15 years on, to the same specs (with minor updates like LEDs, product swaps when things stop being made, etc.) as the original space through a national roll out. And they still appear current because nothing in them was trendy. It was all solid, timeless design. Wood look tiles? A terrible trend that is thankfully already on its way out it seems. Globe lights? Very 2011. They've just made really bad choices in things that were once trendy but are already on their way out.
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