PicoBlog

Some years ago, I went to a saloon called the Bayside Tavern in Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Fish Creek is a small resort town in Door County, a peninsula that juts out into Lake Michigan and acts as a sort of mini-Cape Cod of the Midwest. The Bayside had held down a patch of Fish Creek’s main street for decades, but I’d never patronized it, even though my family had been regular visitors of Door County since I was born. But the place’s habit of winning the annual Best Chili in Door County contest every year had me intrigued. I love chili, in all forms, and my standards are pretty high. Door County isn’t exactly Texas. What were the chances that any of the chilis in the county were that good. But I figured I had to at least try it.

It was good. But, more than that, it was original. It had a personality. The chili, which was dark and grainy, sat atop a bed of noodles and beans and was topped with diced onion and cheddar cheese and sour cream—the latter three toppings at my request. Most bars that serve a chili put out an indifferent, by-the-books, meat-and-beans bowl. This was something like Cincinnati Chili, only different.

But what was Cincinnati Chili doing 500 miles away from its hometown?

The owner Bob MacDonald told me the chili was based on the house dish served at Chili John’s in Green Bay, which is about an hour’s drive from Fish Creek. His father, “Smilen Bob” MacDonald (yes, spelled that way), wanted to serve that chili at his bar, but the owner of Chili John’s wouldn’t share the recipe. So Bob had to come up with his own version. Bayside has been serving it since 1984.

This sent me down a chili rabbit hole that I haven’t quite crawled out of yet.

I had relatives in Green Bay and had visited the city dozens of times. But I’d never once heard my relations talk once about Chili John’s. Which was strange, since Chili John’s is a Green Bay culinary icon. So, the next time I passed through town, I made a point of stopping at the chili parlor.

It was located at the center of a nondescript strip mall on Military Avenue in an unattractive part of town. To say the facade was unprepossessing is an understatement. It could have been a muffler shop for all its charm. Inside, it looked like your average greasy spoon. There was a long, U-shaped counter with short, backless, round stools on either side, plus a few tables. On the walls were various framed memorabilia, tributes to the many Green Bay Packers who had eaten there over the years. (Fran Tarkenton, the famed quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings, had a different relationship with John’s. He’d visit every day before a game at Lambeau Field. He said the chili, which he hated, gave him the anger he needed to beat the Packers.)

I ordered a bowl. Sure enough, there was the Bayside model. A grainy chili sauce, dark as night, over a bowl of spaghetti and beans. I ordered cheese and onions and they came in little plastic cups on the side. I emptied them on top of the chili. There were also oyster crackers. The chili was “as you like it,” as the shop’s longtime slogan went. Similar to the “way” system of Cincinnati Chile (3-way for noodles, meat and cheese; 4-way with beans added; 5-way with onions added), a bowl of John’s varied depending on how the customer ordered it. (You could also choose your level of heat, from mild to medium to hot; though, oddly, the levels have nothing to do with the spiciness of the chili, but how much of it they ladle into your bowl.)

I looked at the menu. It said “Founded in 1913.” Most histories of Cincinnati Chili begins in the 1920s with the Empress Chili parlor. John’s started out a decade earlier. Moreover, Chili John’s founder John Isaac, a Lithuanian immigrant, supposedly started serving the chili in his bar in Auburn, Illinois, in 1900. He had been exposed to chili as a child and it became his favorite meal, leading him to develop a recipe. When the town Auburn voted to go dry in 1912 and Isaac could no longer sell liquor, he moved to Green Bay and opened the diner. It was a brave move. Folks in Green Bay had never heard of chili; indeed, Chili John’s was probably one of the first chili parlors in the Midwest. But Isaac did well.

In a 1920 ad in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Chili John’s boasted it had “the only REAL chili in town.” John pummeled the city with ads in its early years. There was no way a Green Bay resident didn’t hear about the place. (It’s possible that other Green Bay restaurateurs picked up on Isaac’s style. Another Green Bay dining institution, Kroll’s West, also serves its chili over noodles, though the beans are incorporated into the sauce. So does the longstanding Drift Inn in nearby DePere; cheese, onions and sour cream can be ordered as extras.)

The Wisconsin chili trail didn’t end in Green Bay. Bayside’s McDonald wasn’t the first person to admire the work of John Isaac. In 1931, Francis Honesh, a former employee at Chili John’s, opened Real Chili in Milwaukee, supposedly using the Chili John’s recipe. (I’ve heard there was a flurry of lawsuits at the time, but can find no evidence.) Real Chili is still in Milwaukee, with two locations. The one I grew up with was on W. Wells Street around the corner from the grand Pfister Hotel. It was a crummy-looking little joint with a garnish red facade and a sign whose font screamed 1970s. It was open late, until 3 a.m. on weekends, unusual for downtown Milwaukee. (Again, though I was raised in Milwaukee, my parents had never mentioned the place. What did my relatives have against local chili icons?)

Just like Chili John’s, you got dark meat sauce at Real Chili, served over noodles or beans or both. You had to order the cheese and onions separately, but most customers did. If you went late enough—or early enough—you were bound to run into some students from Marquette University, either drunk or hungover. Real Chili is the drunk food of choice among the student body. There’s even a version of the chili called the “Marquette Special.”

In articles about Chili John’s and Real Chili, you’ll often see it referred to Cincinnati-style chili. The Bayside Tavern calls their chili “Cincinnati-style” on the menu. But how can these Wisconsin chilis be Cincinnati-style if they’re all based on a chili that was invented twenty years before Cincinnati Chili came to be? Was there any connection, except retroactively?

According to Dann Woellert, who has literally written the book on Cincinnati Chili, the answer is no.

“It’s obvious they were independently developed,” said Woellert. He explained that all the Cincinnati Chili parlors were opened by Slavic-Macedonian immigrants, who based their “chili” on saltsa kima, a sauce made of ground beef and tomato sauce, spiced with cinnamon, allspice, and cloves, that is popular in Greece as a topping for pasta. John Issac’s recipe, he said, was based on the chili con carne of the southwest and the Chili Mac dish—chili on top of macaroni—common at diners in the early 20th century.

I pointed out that Bayside actually calls its chili “Cincinnati style.”

“Not if it’s based on Chili’s Johns,” said Woellert. “It’s not even the same spice blend. There’s no cinnamon.” I personally don’t know if there is cinnamon in the Chili John’s recipe. Nobody does. The restaurant has always been adamant that the formula is a secret. But all the recipes I’ve seen that claim they are that Chili John’s recipe do not have cinnamon, and the chili itself does not taste of that spice. Indeed, I would agree that the main difference between the Wisconsin chilis and the Cincinnati chilis I’ve sampled is the flavor of the sauce. Chili John’s type of chili is denser and greasier, with deep bottom notes of chili powder and garlic. Cincinnati Chili is light, fruity and aromatic.

As far as the structure of the dish is concerned, however, there’s almost no difference.

So, should we then call Chili John’s and Real Chili bastions of Wisconsin-style chili, a genre unto itself, it’s own thing?

That’s a stretch, too. Because, though Wisconsinites like hearty food, and chili would seem to fall into that category, Wisconsin is not exactly what you would call chili country.

“I recently did a bit on Milwaukee chili for a feature on comfort food,” said Ann Christenson, the longtime restaurant critic at Milwaukee Magazine. ”I took a shot at the question of whether Milwaukee is a chili town, and why or why not. You can get chili here from a lot of places and there are a few annual chili fests, but Real Chili is the only chili restaurant we've got. And nobody else does it like Real Chili. Nobody tries to.”

And they’re had nearly a century to try!

The sad and weird truth about the Chili John’s-Real Chili-Bayside Tavern coterie is just is it’s probably just an anomaly, a would-be regional style of chili that never really took off, but at the same time refuses to die.

Another sad truth: at present, you can’t actually go to Chili John’s. The Hoehne family, who has long owned the business, licenses the name, location and recipe to a franchise in 2019. The franchise holder soon after lost his lease to the Military Avenue space, and moved to a location in nearby Ashwaubenon. The disruption was quickly followed by a nasty lawsuit between the Hoehne family and the franchisee, both claiming breach of contract. Result: today there is no Chili John’s operating in Green Bay, for the first time in more than century.

Real Chili and the Bayside Tavern, meanwhile, still survive. And there is a Chili John’s in Burbank, California, opened by a son of John Isaac in 1946. If the online love bestowed up it is any measure, the Burbank location is far more treasured by locals than the Green Bay original. If you’re in Green Bay and have a hankering for some Chili John’s, they sell the meat sauce commercially in local supermarkets. You have to proved the noodles, beans, cheese and onion yourself.

New Yorkers diners are used to having every sort of food at their fingertips, and pizza is no exception. In addition to having the best pizza in the country, we have examples of every kind of pizza that’s made (deep-dish, Detroit, thin-crust, bar pizza, Sicilian, pizza a taglia, etc.). Or so we thought. Diego Negri, the new executive chef at Lupa—and the first Italian-born chef to head up that longstanding Italian restaurant in the East Village—recently started serving Scrocchiarella, a thin, crispy and golden-brown type of pizza common in Rome, Negri’s hometown. Its name is derived from “scrocchiare”, the Italian word for “crunch.” The biscuit-like Scrocchiarella has a very brief rise time compared to Neapolitan pizza; requires only fresh brewer’s yeast; is made with a mixture of semolina and regular flour; and can be topped with anything you like. Negri breaks his into small pieces to create perfect-sized bites, topped with fresh ricotta, uni and lardo. Another authentic Roman touch at Lupa: their version of all’Amatriciana, a spicy sauce native to Rome, is made with the traditional Guanciale, not the Pancetta you find almost everywhere else… Mother’s Ruin in Chicago is currently serving a slushie called Tragically Delicious. It’s made of “Irish Whiskey, cereal milk, marshmallow and leprechauns.” And, yes, it’s green… Holiday Cocktail Lounge, the East Village bar, recently launched a new drinks menu dedicated to vanished New York bars. There are cocktails named in honor of Mars Bar, Save the Robots, Downtown Beirut and CBGB. There is also a “Memory Lane” food menu meant to evoke the eats once served at now-gone Dojo, Odessa, Extra Fancy and Jules.

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