Is this the most overlooked chili parlor in Greater Cincinnati?

and his late wife, Alexandra, opened it in the late 1960s.

On a Tuesday afternoon last week, Angelo Rallis sat in the kitchen of A&A Restaurant in Mount Healthy taking orders from Tracie, the only waitress on duty that day. Rallis is 96 years old and he’s been working here at A&A since he

It was almost 2 p.m. and Tracie told me they had run out of the turkey and roast beef for the double-decker sandwiches during the lunch rush. She assured me that he still had plenty of ham and that the ham was very good.

I wasn’t there for the double-deckers anyway. I wanted to try the chili, namely a four-way with onion. Because along with being a lunch spot offering sandwiches and burgers, A&A is first and foremost a chili parlor (just look at the old sign above the entrance and you’ll see that it advertises “homemade chili”). And it might just be the most overlooked parlor in town.

I took a seat at one of the wood-patterned linoleum booths and wondered why no one had ever told me about this place before. It has the kind of timeworn quality and conviviality you can only find in a truly good neighborhood joint.

There is the grandma wallpaper and the oversized wall calendar, the dated chandeliers and a “no credit cards ac-

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cepted” sign above the register. There’s even a pink linoleum countertop that would be considered hip by today’s standards. Over here is a photo of the firstspaceshuttlelaunch.Overthereisa fading picture of the Cincinnati skyline in its Riverfront Stadium days.

Along the U-shaped counter, a father and his four daughters were finishing lunch and the girls were getting restless. The father told Tracie that he and his kids usually come in for breakfast, but now that he’s working the second shift, he was having lunch with them instead.

A few booths down from me, a woman named Starla Cattrell and her brothers, Dave and Jeff, were having an impromptu A&A reunion. All three of them had worked here in the1970s and1980s. Starla and her husband even lived upstairs in the old apartment above the restaurant.

“How’s the place look to you now?” I asked her.

“EXACTLY the same,” Starla said.

Starla and her brothers told me Rallis is a sweetheart, though he could be tough to work for sometimes. “If he liked you, he liked you,” one of her brothers said. “But if he didn’t like you, you knew it.” She told me how local sports teams used to come in here all the time for burgers and coneys and how Alexandra used to make some of the best homemade soups in town.

Angelo and Alexandra Rallis moved to Cincinnati from Kastoria, Greece, in 1955 to be with Angelo’s uncle, who worked at Park Chili in Northside. When I asked if his uncle was the one who taught him to make chili, Angelo snapped back, “Nobody taught me!”Despitehisage,Angelostillpulls10-12hour days at A&A and says he has no intention of retiring anytime soon.

The three-way I ordered was as good as any I’ve ever had in Cincinnati, tasting more like the neighborhood parlors like Pleasant Ridge or Camp Washington than the local chains. And like those neighborhood parlors, this place was just as much about the atmosphere as it was about the food.

A&A is the kind of restaurant that deserves more credit than it’s gotten over the years. It has another great story to tell about Greek immigrants coming to this city and making good on the American dream. And it’s an example of why a husband-and-wife team running one solid neighborhood chili parlor for a lifetime is something worth honoring.

7617 Hamilton Ave., Mount Healthy, 513-522-9079. Hours: 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Closed Sunday.