Chili’s Fire Pit is a brick & mortar hot sauce shop located within a few miles of the shores of Lake Erie in sunny Mentor, OH…just east of Cleveland, OH. During the fall of 2004, Joe spent a month in Cleveland doing a rotation in anesthesiology at South Pointe Hospital and made several trips to Mentor to go shopping there. It was such a cool place that we even did the family thing and made a trip with the whole fam to hang out with Don (Chili) and try a bunch of sauces, salsas, and other miscellanous goodies. If memory serves, we ended up spending a fair amount of moolah loading up on some great sauces for our collection…many of which are still with us to this day. We met up with Chili again at this past ZestFest, and wanted to give him & his business a little more exposure. Besides having his brick & mortar shop, Don also does mail- and online-ordering as well. We asked Don to answer a few questions about his business, what he likes to eat, and maybe to show some more pics we took of him from our trip to TX…

Tell us a little about how you got into the hot & spicy foods biz and why you wanted to have your own store.

I started when I was working at a restaurant in the early 70’s drinking those little 1oz. bottles of tabasco sauces and I was hooked. I opened the store because I had to drive an hour away to get the heat.

Which of the products you sell do you like & use the most, and why?

I have about a dozen favorites. I like my sauces, mostly. The Hairy Canary is being used a lot lately. It just depends on what I’m cooking [in terms of what I use].

We know you make your own hot sauce & salsa. What’s more satisfying to you…success with your business or awards for your creations, and why?

Successful business is first. Getting awards for the things we make is good…but everyone has their own tastes of course.

What 3 products (sauces, salsa, or otherwide) would you recommend to someone who’s new to hot & spicy food to get them hooked?

I really like my Limelight hot sauce, our Mom’s Original Salsa, and Ashes rub.

Any plans for new stuff from your own line of products, or other plans for expanding the store?

We are working on a peanut butter sauce that is wonderful and a HOTTER version of our Crybaby wing sauce. We don’t have any plans on expanding [right now]. But, we’ll keep adding new products all the time.

Don has a great store, and makes some fine stuff of his own. His Limelight sauce is one we’ve tried, and is sure to please those who like the heat. If you drop by the shop or talk to him by another way, let him know that Joe & Linda said to say hello.

You can find Don at:

Chili’s Fire Pit
9570 Mentor Avenue
Mentor, OH 44060
440-352-8058
http://www.chilisfirepit.com

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