Happy Birthday, Skyline!

Skyline Chili is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Sixty years—that’s a long time to be making what some people don’t even consider to be true chili. When Nicholas Lambrinides opened in 1949, he had me paint some menu posters. This was one of the first sign painting jobs I had ever done for money. Since then I worked off and on for Skyline and the Lambrinides for more than forty years. In fact, I was in their 40th anniversary television commercial and my company had made many of the props used in the production. Being associated with Skyline was a lot of fun. It’s a little known fact that I, personally, invented the “Cheese Coney.” Nobody at Skyline believes me, but back in the early 1950s, I ordered some coney islands at the chili parlor on Glenway Avenue. It took some doing, but I convinced the old waiter to bring me a side order of cheese. I put it on my sandwiches and the “Cheese Coney” was born. Really! In the mid-1970s, Bob Hope was having a little party in Palm Springs and wanted to serve Skyline Chili. The guys at Skyline helped me send out a care package, and this was before the chili company packaged their product frozen. We surrounded the chili with dry ice and packed it all in Styrofoam. I then bought a seat on a flight to Palm Springs and left the chili in the care of one of the flight attendants. I had someone in California pick it up and Mr. Hope got his Skyline without a hitch!