Tom Kiradjieff and John Kiradjieff were Bulgarian American restaurateurs and Macedonian immigrants, credited for their creation of a regional specialty dish known as Cincinnati chili.Cincinnati chilly an article by Lucy M. Long in Deutsch, Jonathan, Benjamin Fulton, and Alexandra Zeitz. (2018). We eat what?: a cultural encyclopedia of unusual foods in the United States. pp. 91-94. .Claude Fischler, Chapter 40 (The “McDonaldization” of culture') in J.L. Flandrin and M. Montanari, eds., Food: A Culinary History, Arts and Traditions of the Table: European perspectives, publisher Columbia University Press, (2013) , p. 544.

History The brothers were born in the town of Hrupishta, in the Ottoman Empire,According to the statistics of Vasil Kanchov ("Macedonia. Ethnography and Statistics"), in 1900 the Ottoman Hrupishta had 2690 inhabitants, of which there were 1100 Bulgarians, 700 Turks, 720 Aromanians and 170 Gypsies.Кѫнчовъ, Василъ. Македония. Етнография и статистика. София, Бѫлгарското книжовно дружество, 1900. с. 267, (in Bulgarian). to Bulgarian parents. Their father Kostadin was a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, and actively participated in the affairs of the Bulgarian Exarchate.According to IMARO revolutionaries Georgi Hristov (1876-1964) and Kiryak Shkurtov, the father of the Kiradjhieff brothers Kostadin, was among the leading members of the Bulgarian community in the town.Markov, Georgi. Hrupishta. Memories. Bulgarian State Archives - Haskovo, Interface, 2002. p. 218, . (in Bulgarian).Киряк Шкуртов, Искреността на младотурците в сп. Илюстрация Илинден, кн. 2, София, февруари 1934 год., стр. 7-8. (in Bulgarian) The town was annexed during the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) by Greece. The partition of the Ottoman lands of the region of Macedonia between the Balkan nation-states resulted in the fact that some of the Slavic speakers of Ottoman Macedonia emigrated to Bulgaria, or left the area.

Athanas (Tom) was born in 1892. During the First World War, he was a soldier in the Bulgarian Army. In 1917, he was dismissed and moved to the Bulgarian capital Sofia, where he worked for a time as an accountant. His little brother, Ivan (John), born in 1895, had served also some time with the Bulgarian army. In 1921, both emigrated to the United States.

They settled initially in New York,Donna R. Gabaccia, Donna R Gabaccia (2009) We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans Harvard University Press, Of Cookbooks and Culinary Roots, p. 109, . but after selling hot dogs there for some time, the brothers followed their big brother Argir (Argie) to Cincinnati.In a petition to the US Congress opened on May 21, 2022 by Ivan D. Ivanov, Ph.D. in political science at the University of Cincinnati is available data from the 1920 US census. There is attached a sheet from the census' results, presenting Argir Kiradjieff as a Bulgarian from Macedonia living in Cincinnati. For more see: Stop H.R. 741 which misrepresents Macedono-Bulgarian Americans, p. 11, row 66. Born in 1880, he was a cashier of the Bulgarian Exarchate Church-School Board in Hrupishta. Argie had settled in Cincinnati by 1918, where he opened a grocery store.. In Cincinnati, the brothers began to develop their own business. Tom got a job as a bank clerk and worked at night, cooking chili for the customers in his brother's place. It was at this time that Tom invented the regional specialty known as Cincinnati chili.

In 1922, they opened a hot dog stand located next to a burlesque theater called the Empress, which they named their business after. Tom and John returned to Bulgaria to find wives, while Argir went to his homeland for this purpose. Argir stayed there for several years, and when he came back, his two brothers were well established and provided him a job as a cashier. According to the journalist Vasil Stephanoff,Vasil Stephanoff (1884 – 1950) was a Bulgarian publicist, publisher of the newspaper Naroden Glas (1907 – 1950) in the US. For more: MCHS News, November 2015, Vol. 3, Issue No. 6, An article on Vasil Stephanoff, p. 6. in 1933 the Kiradjieff brothers were among the most successful Bulgarians in the city, owners of a large and modern restaurant in the city center.Vasil Stephanoff, 25th anniversary jubilee almanac of the newspaper "Naroden Glas": the oldest Bulgarian national newspaper in America: 1908-1933, p. 364. (in Bulgarian).Шандански, Ив. Въоръжената самозащита на българите в Егейска Македония (март – септември 1943 г.), стр. 54 в Известия на Държавните архиви, кн. 94, 2007, стр. 34–95, (in Bulgarian).

Argir's wife did not adapt to America, and they moved back to Macedonia in the 1940s.It is not clear when exactly they moved back and which country was their destination. In 1940, this region's northern parts belonged to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, while the southern parts belonged to the Kingdom of Greece. Between 1941 and 1944 the Yugoslav area and some parts of Greek Macedonia were annexed by the Kingdom of Bulgaria. In 1945 the northern part became a new Yugoslav Republic, while in the southern part broke out the Greek Civil War. The northeastern part remained under Bulgaria during the whole period.Thanos Veremis (2017) A Modern History of the Balkans: Nationalism and Identity in Southeast Europ, Bloomsbury Publishing, Chapter VII. From War to Communism, pp. 58-67, . Empress Chili grew to become a local chain. In 1959, the Kiradjieffs of Empress Chili announced that they would be the first to come up with a new design for drive in car-service. The last man who ran the family business was Tom's son, Assen (Joe) Kiradjieff (1930-2024).Assen "Joe" Kiradjieff, d. May 7, 2024, Green Township. Since the late 1950s, when his father's health sharply declined, Joe operated Empress Chili. Tom died in 1960, while John had died in 1953. Later, the Empress chain had a single surviving outlet. In 2009, 79-year-old Joe retired and sold Empress Chili..

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See also Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia Macedonian Bulgarians Macedonian Americans

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External links Veterans History Project - 2019 interview with Joe Kiradjieff. Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library.