Cincinnati Style Chili

[meforpres]

I am from Northern Ky. I have thought about opening up a Cincinnati Chili restuarant like Cincinnati's Skyline, Goldstar and Emperus chili. in the Gulf Shores area. Menue items would be 3-ways, 4-ways, 5-ways, cheese coneys, chili cheese fries, ect. Any thoughts?

[Give me a break]

Years ago, I had to go to Cincinnati on business. Up until then, Cincinnati was just a name to me. Well, after spending 3-4 days in Cincinnati, I came home and told my wife that if we ever get a chance to drive cross-country, I definitely want to choose a route that goes through Cincinnati. As for their chili, that was a new experience for me and I have never had any chili that even came close to it. I ate it at every chance I could the entire time that I was there. And Yes, we need more diversity in food down here. One can only eat so many shrimp and chicken fried steak.

[meforpres]

I agree. We vacation in Gulf Shores every year. Now we need to do our research and see what it will take to make it happen! Thanks for the feedback!

[marty]

I am from Florence but now live in Silverhill.I would love to have a place to go for a 4-way.I have years of resturant management under my belt so if I can be of any help just ask.

[FastFred]

I was in Columbus Ohio for a few yrs.and ate at Sky Line"often",I would welcome this style of food!

[meforpres]

Love to hear it! Marty, I have NO clue of what to do first. I work for the Kentucky Court of Justice and do not know anything about starting a business. It has been a dream of ours for a while now and we saw the need for Cincinnati Chili in Gulf Shores. I thought about franchising Gold Star or Skyline. What are thought on a franchise?

[Marty]

I think your best way to go would be to open up an independent resturant with Cincinnati style chili.Franches are in my opinion are a pain in the rear and geared to be more beneficial to the fracher insted of the frachee(excuse my spelling).I have several good chili recipes!

[meforpres]

I think you may be right, good advice! I have a recipe also, it is pretty close to Cold Star.

[meforpres]

Goldstar , I meant.

[Give me a break]

Here's my 2-cents. Regardless of how good your Cincinnati Chili is, if you don't have a good location, you are in trouble. If you try to go it on-the-cheap from the git-go, you are in trouble. When you 1st start out, you won't have the benefit of word-of-mouth that can keep you alive until you make enough money to afford some real advertisement in local papers to bring in 1st time customers. I hate to say it but, if you come down here and take a lease out in some obscure strip shopping center of one of a 1/2 dozen storefronts that really don't catch the eye of the passing motorists, you are going to be DOA. If you think that you can rent a cheap commercial storefront and just paint the walls and put in picnic benches for people to sit on and have no real architectural appeal to your establishment, then don't even think of trying. You will have to hire a professional to create eye-catching signage for your store. You will have to have a marque on the road that catches motorist's attention and this can only be achieved by paying professionals in the field. Then, you will have to have great people working for you. No stupid high school girls that can't engage your customers or worse, don't even know how to please them. If you plan on having your wife or another relative work in your eatery from the start to save money--forget it. You and they are just like any employee--they have to get paid in order to pay their bills and exist. There are too many food eateries down here and even if you have something unususal for this area--which I really think that you do have, if you don't put some real money into the operation that you present to the public, they will never come to see what great food you have and you will be begging your landlord to get out of your lease so that you can head back from where you came from with the shirt on your back.

[meforpres]

Wow, food for thought...but you have an excellant point. You are also 100% right. You seem like you have had experience in this. All of this is just in the "thinking process". Pretty much you need to already established and successful inorder to have the funds needed up front to even start. I agree. That is why I wondering about franchising but that has its pros and cons too. Ok, resturant aside, what other kind of business do you feel there is a need for down there? This input is great advise and I appreciate all your help.

[Guest]

I think you should go for it!

[FastFred]

We need a good place for "BREAKFAST"! Even if it just opened in the morning and closed up at noon!

[Give me a break]

FastFred wrote:

We need a good place for "BREAKFAST"! Even if it just opened in the morning and closed up at noon!

Yes, and you could be successful if you serve breakfast beyond 10:30am. Most places stop serving breakfast at 10:30am which is before many retired people care to eat breakfast. I bet that if you just served breakfast from 6am to noon, that you could make a good living--provided that you have more than one recipe. When you stated that you had one good Cincinnati chili recipe, that scared me. No one makes it in the restaurant field with just one good recipe. Serve breakfast with scrapple, waffles with powdered sugar as a substitute for syrup, real country fried potatoes and not just the tasteless strands of packaged hashed browns (as they call them here. Fry them in good oil with onions, paprika, salt and pepper to give them some taste and you will have the only country fried potoes down here that have any flavor. Serve your eggs with the option of a side of corn-beef hash and you will have the only breakfast place that offers it. Introduce the South to some good scrapple to go with eggs and these locals will want to move North for breakfast. Believe me, no one down here has any idea what good breakfasts are served up in the rest of the country. Keep your restaurant spotlessly clean and don't ever have any of your help clean off tables with the same cloth that they use to wipe off the chairs--a baby with a wet diaper might just have gotten off of that chair. Unfortuntely, our local health department is oblivious to that serious infraction of good hygiene.

[FastFred]

Give me a break----Corn beef hash with eggs is one of my all time favorites,and I have ate many helpings of scrapple.I had to go to FairHope the other day and ate breakfast at i-hop down the road a piece,it was the ultimate in bad!

[Give me a break]

FastFred wrote:

Give me a break----Corn beef hash with eggs is one of my all time favorites,and I have ate many helpings of scrapple.I had to go to FairHope the other day and ate breakfast at i-hop down the road a piece,it was the ultimate in bad!

The iHop that you ate ate is the worse one that I have ever seen. iHop ought to close that place down. I love ihop and am only sorry that there are none around here.

[queen]

I have some cans of Skyline chili my sister-in-law brings me from Cinncy. You are welcome to them.