Park (F*cking) Chili

Loyal boilover readers know I’m not adversed to the occasional swear word. I’m not a big fan of visual editing (this doesn’t do a f@%king thing for me, and the only reason I used it in the title was because Kevin and his Cincinnati.com endorsed blog are kind enough to direct traffic my way via the RSS blogroll on his blog). Curse words are a vital part of our language; both in the sense that they can convey strong emotion, as well as their extremely versatile uses.

Now I’ve been alive a hair over 25 years–in that time I have heard, read, and uttered more than my share of viral language. But the number of times I’ve heard the words “shit” and “fuck” were doubled on Monday when I went to Park Chili in Northside for lunch.

I get to Northside a few times a month, and I’m always game to try something new. Having eaten at the Blue Jay Diner, my boss and I thought we would give a similar establishment, only a few doors down, a chance at feeding us. Located on the southeast corner of Hamilton and Knowlton, Park Chili holds a prime piece of restaurant real estate. So when we walked in to NO customers and the staff sitting around the diner bar, alarm #1 went of in my head. I think had either my boss or I turned around the other would have followed without question. But being a family owned and operated business since 1937, we thought we owed it to the legacy to take a chance.

Alarm #2 rang as I sat down and heard a woman in the back utter “So-and-so put the fucking lid from the boiled potatoes on top of my clean lids!” That was followed by our waitress who brought us two glasses of water, muttering “I think these are clean,” as she set them on our table. Alarm #3 began to ring over #2.

But c’mon, this is a greasy spoon if I’ve ever been in one, and if everything was spotless the food would probably suck. So we stuck around, albeit with a keen eye on every bit of silverware placed at the table.

My boss got a coney and a 4-way and said the chili was decent, better on the coney than the pasta. I got the Phil Burger, a diner-sized double decker that was on par with what I remember having at the Blue Jay, but not as good as Red Fox (Editor’s note: Although I’ve eaten there more times than I can count, I have yet to try The Big Tucker at Tucker’s on Vine, which I expect to be pretty solid as far as diner burgers go).

The food is not why I’m writing about this place. I eat out all the time, but I leave the restaurant reviews to the foodies. But fuck me if this wasn’t the most fucking fucked up speech pattern I’ve ever fucking heard during a meal. I wish I had one of those admissions counters they use at events to count the swear words. Honestly, I don’t think 10 seconds went by without hearing one, which puts our half hour meal in the 180 curse word territory…and frankly it could have gone over 200.

We were treated to conversations about how so-and-so fucked this up, or how some other asshole was a total piece of shit. Or how so-and-so had to be making money because “That son of a bitch is selling sandwiches for $10!”

It was really unbefuckinglievable, and I hope you give it a chance so you can (audibly) witness it for yourself. And when your meal is done, don’t fuck around and wait for the fucking check, just walked up to the register and pay for your shit.