Cincinnati chili is a spaghetti dish.
That sentence causes fights, so let me get it out of the way early.
It is not Texas chili. There are no beans on top of it by default. It has cinnamon and chocolate in it. It goes over spaghetti, gets buried under a mountain of shredded cheddar, and you order it by a number depending on how many things are on it.
People from elsewhere find this deeply confusing. People from Cincinnati find the confusion offensive.
And that regional intensity is exactly why the business behind it is interesting.
Because this chain did something most restaurant companies never manage. It became two businesses at once.
A restaurant chain that keeps opening locations.
And a packaged goods brand sold in grocery stores across the country, including to people who have never seen one of the restaurants.