Skyline Chili's Crosstown Shootout VIP Party Sweepstakes

One of the great Cincinnati sporting events of the year is around the corner, The Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout. This year's battle between UC and XU takes place December 10th at Xavier's Cintas Center. There is another great annual event that is attached to the basketball game, The Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout VIP Party. The VIP Party takes place the week of the shootout and as you would expect, features Skyline Chili as the meal, along with appearances by the coaches, cheerleaders and mascots. Attendees also have a chance to win various Crosstown Shootout related door prizes. We attended the party last year and can verify its a very fun and well run event. We will be attending this year as well and are looking forward to the festivities. Free cheese coneys and free beer with college basketball as the backdrop is an excellent night for me.

This year you have a chance of attending the Skyline VIP Party! We are giving away a free invite to one of our lucky readers. Just make a comment on this post that either says "GO MUSKIES!" or "GO BEARCATS!". We will randomly select one as our winner (the winner can also bring one guest). You have until 5 PM on Friday December 2nd to enter. Details about the event are below, only one entry allowed and please do not enter if you cannot attend the party.

• The VIP Party is on Thursday December 8th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The party is located at the Fourth & Sycamore location in Downtown Cincinnati.  
• Attendees will have the chance to win Crosstown Shootout Prizes and enjoy a Skyline Chili buffet.
• Mo Egger of Cincinnati’s 1530 ESPN Radio will broadcast live interviews with Coach Mick Cronin of UC and Coach Chris Mack of Xavier.

Demetrios IV Review

Until two weeks ago, I had never heard of Demetrios IV. Based on our research it was a family restaurant in Mariemont that also had Cincinnati chili items on their menu. Would Demetrios be a hidden gem or would we end up wishing we had never heard of it?

The best way to describe the atmosphere for Demetrios IV is imagine a rest home that serves cheese coneys. Yes, that sounds a bit harsh, but its the best description I have. We were the youngest patrons there by about 70 years and we could overhear a conversation next to us about hospice care. But, as long as the food is good and everything is sanitary, I don't really care what the age makeup of a restaurant is. The dining area was clean and our waitress was very nice. The menu was a typical Greek family restaurant/diner menu. Along with the chili options there was breakfast, gyros, dinner and gigantic double decker sandwiches. I caught a peek of one of the double deckers and it looked impressive. No, we did not find what the meaning of Demetrios IV was or if there is a Demetrios I, II and III.

Clint's Review

I go into each coney quest stop wanting to find the best cheese coney in town. If that isn't the case, I hope to find some positives of the coney even if other aspects fall short. I want to promote local businesses, last thing I want to do is write a negative review. Unfortunately, I can't think of one good thing to say about the coneys I ate (or attempted to eat) at Demetrios IV.



The chili was not enjoyable at all. I don't know what spices they use, but a new recipe is in order. To make things worse there was tons of chili on each coney. The hot dog tasted like it was nuked in a microwave. Very rubbery texture. The cheese looked good, but couldn't overcome the poor chili and hot dog. This was the only quest stop where I could not finish the food in front of me. I tried very hard to finish, hoping the coneys would get better, but after the first bite of the 2nd coney I threw in the towel...or napkin in this instance. (Alison with the quote of the night: "It looked like you were a contestant on Fear Factor!")

I hate to do this, but I give Demetrios IV a .5 out of 5.

Alison's Review

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend the Demetrios IV cheese coneys. Most of the ingredients were subpar. The chili had an odd bitter quality. The hot dogs were rubbery. The buns were not fresh. The onions were cut in long slices rather than diced. I couldn't taste mustard if there was any at all on my coneys. I suppose the cheese was decent, but there was no redemption at this point. And though everything was a little off, I plowed through two coneys simply out of hunger until I looked up at Clint and saw the disgust in this face. In seeing his abhorrence to the coneys, I struggled to take another few bites before giving up, realizing we'd probably be stopping at Frisch's on the way home, anyhow.

In all fairness Demetrios had a very nice restaurant and the service was fine. But the coney, which was the worst we've had during the quest, was also one of the most expensive at $1.75. I'm giving this parlor 1 out of 5 stars for their cheese coneys.

Skyline Holiday Gift Card Promotion

As Thanksgiving approaches so does another event, "Black Friday". After Thanksgiving, holiday shoppers head to the stores to find great deals on gifts for their friends and family...or even themselves if they aren't in a giving mood. Skyline Chili is trying to lure in bargain hunters as well with a new promotion they are running. When someone buys at $25 gift card, Skyline will add another $5 gift certificate. If I remember Skyline's prices correctly, that should be good enough for 3 more coneys. This promotion begins November 22nd and runs til December 26th. (press release at bottom of post)

As always, we here at the Coney Quest give equal opportunity to any chili related deals. If any other chili parlors are running any specials this holiday season, please drop us a line and we will pass the word on.

Skyline Chili Offers Holiday Shoppers Free Gift Certificate with Gift Card Purchase

CINCINNATI – Skyline Chili is offering customers a free $5 gift certificate bonus with every $25 dollar gift card purchase they make this holiday season. The promotion begins tomorrow, Nov. 22 and will run through Dec. 26 – just in time for last-minute shoppers.

“This is a great way to give a little extra to our customers for the holidays,” said Sarah Lapham, director of marketing for Skyline Chili. “The gift cards are great for teacher gifts, holiday parties and gift exchanges, and are fantastic stocking stuffers for cash-strapped college students.”

A few restrictions do apply: the $5 gift certificates will be good at the location of purchase from Jan. 1 to Feb. 29, 2012. The promotion is valid in participating stores and is not available online.

Quest Stop #29

The next stop on the Coney Quest is a restaurant I just added to our list tonight. We will take a rare eastside quest stop to Mariemont and visit Demetrios IV. I've been to Mariemont many times, but never heard of Demetrios IV until I saw The Chili Report recently visited. Based on what I have read, it seems to have many of the same qualities of a Cincinnati chili parlor, so we decided to add it to our quest. Since it is one of the few remaining parlors on our list with evening hours, we will make it our next stop.

Santorini Review

Quest Stop #28 took us back west into the heart of Cheviot to try Santorini's Family Restaurant. As soon as you walk into Santorini's you know its a Greek restaurant. There are pictures and paintings of Greece and everything has a blue and white color scheme. The food is just not Greek as the menu indicates they serve Greek and American food. Santorini's probably has the largest menu out of all the restaurants we have visited. Like most family restaurants there is breakfast and American grill items, they also serve Greek specialties like Gyros and Baklava, and they have your standard Cincinnati chili classics. One item we found to be surprising was Pizza. Not often you go to a family or Greek restaurant and see pizza on the menu. The service was very good and friendly.


Alison's Review

Santorini offers a really flavorful coney. I had difficulty telling what kind of hot dog they use, but it had a great smokey flavor to it. The chili was a nice meaty texture and the flavor was pretty decent. The spice level could probably be a little bit bolder. I imagine it might taste a little bland on its own or on a 3-Way, but the overall flavor was a good balance with the tasty hot dog.

The soft, fresh bun was just about as good as they get. The onion and mustard were just strong enough to be tasted but not overwhelming. My only complaint was that the cheese wasn't very neatly shredded, and most of it fell off onto my plate. However, I'll take the fresh grated cheese, in any form, over the pre-packaged stuff any day.

It's great to find another parlor that well represents Cincinnati stye chili. I'm giving Santorini a 3.75 out of 5 stars.  

Clint's Review

When I saw how big the Santorini's menu I didn't have high hopes for the coneys to be very good. With such a large menu I was concerned that there wouldn't be too much care put into the coneys. Also I never knew about Santorini's until someone notified us about them in the comments section of a previous post. Luckily, Santorini's cheese coneys turned out to be a pleasant surprise.


The chili itself was ok. Not the most flavorful chili I have enjoyed on the quest, but good enough. It was on the savory side but had some sweet undertones as well. It did have a good thick texture and was not watery. While the chili didn't have a spicy heat level, it did come out piping hot. The cheese was tasty and freshly grated. However, the grating quality could be a little better. It reminded me of the cheese Alison and I grated on our first canned chili experiment. The cheese portion was generous which is something I do approve of. While the hot dog flavor didn't jump out to me as much as it did Alison, I did enjoy the hot dog. Only subpar aspect was the bun, I guess Alison got fresher buns than I did because they didn't seem that soft to me.

Overall Santorini's exceeded my expectations and produced a quality coney. I give them a 3.5 out of 5.

Quest Stop #28

We have gone about three weeks since our last official coney quest stop. That is just far too long, so this week we will put a stop to that. As it stands now we only have 5 parlors remaining on the quest, but of course as you know by now, that is subject to change. The next stop on the quest we will head back to the westside and visit Santorini, a Greek restaurant in Cheviot that features Cincinnati style chili on their menu. Look for our review later in the week.