ENTERTAINMENT

Gold Star Chili turns 50, welcomes family as CEO

Polly Campbell
pcampbell@enquirer.com
Roger David, the new CEO of Gold Star Chili makes a 3- way at the Mt. Washington location. David's father and uncles founded the restaurant in 1965 in Mt. Washington. The company has grown to 89 locations with locations in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

As Gold Star Chili turns 50 this year, Roger David is starting his job as CEO of the Cincinnati chili company. He's the first member of the Gold Star founding family to have the top job, which he'll officially start May 1. David, who's also 50, is a former branding professional and most recently CEO of Buffalo Wings & Rings. (He is also, by the way, Mayor John Cranley's brother-in-law).

He is eager to get started on shaping the company's next 50 years.

"I'm thinking about how we can redefine that chili experience, almost starting with a white sheet of paper," he said. "I need to figure out how to preserve the past, keep an eye to the future and do it without screwing up and getting kicked out of the family."

Preserving the past is absolutely essential to a Cincinnati chili business, a unique local food that has a deep tradition and a city full of loyal repeat customers. Modernizing the experience has to be done carefully. "I wish you could have heard the conversations the first year we tried to introduce the foot-long cheese coney. It's a balancing act," acknowledges David.

The Gold Star story starts with the entrepreneurial aspirations of an immigrant family. The Daoud brothers immigrated here from Jordan, sponsored by an uncle. (Some of the brothers changed their last name to David.) When they bought Hamburger Heaven in Mount Washington, then changed its name and emphasis to chili – Cincinnati chili was already 30 years old. The Daouds' accomplishment was in innovating how to sell their coneys and ways.

"They were the first chili parlor to franchise," said David, whose father was the eldest of the original brothers, Charlie. "We were the first to use mass media to drive trial (first-time visits), to come up with a prototype, and to add drive-throughs." They expanded rapidly by franchising, unlike rival Skyline, which has corporate stores.

The brothers, Dave, Frank, Charlie and Basheer, ran the company for 25 years. For the next 25 years, they found CEOs who had experience from outside the company.

Now they have someone who is both from the family and has outside experience. David worked in marketing at Gold Star for ten years after college, then to dot-com marketing firm marchFIRST, then at Laga, now known as Brandimage. Then he had ten years of experience as CEO of Cincinnati-based Buffalo Wings & Rings. He is transitioning into the job as current CEO Mike Rohrkemper retires.

He will be overseeing a rebranding effort for the chain. Work on a new look has already begun, and will be evident in the next Gold Star to open in the next 6 weeks at University Station near Xavier.

But David sees branding as more than visuals. "It starts tableside." he said. "If the people waiting on you don't nail it, and the food's not where it needs to be, the rest doesn't matter."

For him, the tableside branding for a Cincinnati chili restaurant is based on its relationship with regulars. "It's the way a franchisee might know a customer's order. They see his pick-up truck in the parking lot, they know his usual order is a 4-way bean, so they have that ready for him when he walks in." Extending that relationship to people who are not regulars is key. "The approach has to be embedded in operations, and in the culture. Who you hire, how you reward, how much voice they have in decision-making are all important," he said.

In order to try out some of his ideas, David pictures opening a few corporate locations that will serve as a lab.

There are many questions David has for his white sheet of paper, all of which question the conventional wisdom of chili. Why are there only five ways, for instance? Would something like chicken chili work? Will expanding outside of Greater Cincinnati mean adding new foods, possibly new concepts? How would technology fit into the time-tested atmosphere of a chili parlor?

And how does Gold Star get newcomers to Cincinnati to become chili lovers? That one David has the answer to. "I need to get them three times. By the third time, they're ours," he said.

Gold Star celebrates National Chili Day and their 50th anniversary by offering $3 3-ways all day Thursday.