Montgomery Inn Forever

Making Cincinnati-style "barbecue" at home

Happy 513 Day! This is the midpoint of Midwesterner’s 513 Week, a three-part celebration of Cincinnati’s foodways. On Monday, we shared a recipe inspired by the Queen City’s go-to chain pizza. Now, here are the city’s most (in)famous ribs.

There’s more than one way to make a delicious rack of ribs. That’s what I want to say to the people who’ve written off Montgomery Inn, a clubby Cincinnati institution known for its celebrity clientele—Bob Hope famously paid for cross-country catering—and its 1950s tavern-style baby backs.

They’re baked! the barbecue faithful complain.

So are many delicious things, I want to respond. And the word you should use is “roasted.”

But Montgomery Inn doesn’t need me. It’s big enough to defend itself.

The business, which started as a neighborhood bar in suburban Montgomery, Ohio, is now a corporate hydra, with two massive restaurants, separate takeout counters at each location, a catering arm, a Bon Appétit–endorsed bottled sauce, and a mail-order subsidiary, Cincy Favorites, that ships Cincinnati foods like LaRosa’s Pizza nationwide.

And while the restaurants and some of their regulars are showing their age, the celebrities haven’t stopped coming. There’s still good money in selling saucy ribs and bourbon drinks to professional athletes. Just last month, former University of Cincinnati Bearcat Jason Kelce shouted Montgomery Inn out on the Kelce brothers’ podcast, New Heights: “Come on, now,” he intoned. “Get some of them barbecue ribs…”

Sure, in some circles, it hasn’t been cool to like Montgomery Inn since the craft barbecue movement came to town, and mom-and-pop joints like Eli’s, Bee’s, and Pickles & Bones showed Cincinnati what else ribs could be. Reddit loves to hate it.

But food writers are siding with Kelce. The country’s best-known barbecue critic, Texas Monthly editor and self-described “BBQ Snob” Daniel Vaughn, gave the ribs a thumbs-up after a visit last year, recognizing them as “the best version of Chili’s baby back ribs.” Cincinnati Enquirer food and dining writer Keith Pandolfi, a James Beard Award winner who’s covered the city’s food scene full-time since 2020, is a fan.

“It’s not really barbecue, but it’s the ‘barbecue’ that I and a lot of other Cincinnatians grew up with,” Pandolfi says. “Every time I write about it, I get a lot of hate, but it hits all the right notes if you’re a Cincinnati native.”

The Vegas-steakhouse-like decor has nostalgic appeal, too, especially at the very 1980s Boathouse location, a concrete-and-glass landmark on the Ohio River. “It’s such a throwback to the late ’80s and ’90s, with all the famous Reds and Bengals players and political figures on the wall,” Pandolfi says. “It’s kind of a museum of Cincinnati history, and a great example of Cincinnati being proud of itself.”

You don’t have to love the restaurants to love the ribs. If the recipes below are any good (and I hope they are, after about a year of R&D), you can get a sense for the Greek-seasoned ribs—founder Ted Gregory and his wife, Matula, were both second-generation Greek-Americans—and the Worcestershire-spiked barbecue sauce without making a reservation.

I’ll keep going back, for the nostalgic pleasure of dragging thick-cut Saratoga chips through warm barbecue sauce in the same dining rooms where I celebrated birthdays in elementary school.

And because I always have an appetite for those sauce-lacquered, fall-apart-tender oven-roasted ribs. “If I didn’t grow up with it, maybe I wouldn’t like it, but I crave it all the time,” Pandolfi says. “If somebody gives me the option of going to Montgomery Inn or a ‘real’ barbecue place, nine times out of ten, I’m picking Montgomery Inn.”

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MONTGOMERY INN–STYLE RIBS
Makes 2 racks, serving 4–6

Like my take on LaRosa’s Pizza, this recipe started with published ingredient lists and nutrition facts. Those didn’t tell the whole story, but months of testing and side-by-side tasting helped me fill in the gaps.

Ingredients
2 tbsp. (20 g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt (if using table salt, use the same amount by weight or half as much by volume)
2 tbsp. (14 g) sweet paprika
1 tbsp. (3 g) dried oregano
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. black pepper
2 racks baby back ribs (about 2 lb. each)
¼ cup fresh lemon juice, from 1–2 lemons
1 recipe Montgomery Inn–Style Barbecue Sauce (recipe below)

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Line a rimmed baking sheet with heavy-duty foil and set a wire rack on top.

2. Add salt and other spices to a small ramekin or bowl and mix to combine.

3. Place the ribs on a large cutting board, baking sheet, or other clean, flat surface. Pat them dry with paper towels or a clean kitchen towel.

4. If the membrane, a thin sheet of connective tissue, is still attached to the ribs on the bone side, remove it: Slide a butter knife or the tip of a spoon underneath it to loosen an edge. Grip the membrane with a paper towel and pull steadily to remove it in one piece. If it tears, repeat until the surface is clean. If the membrane has already been removed, proceed to the next step.

5. Brush the bone side of each rack with 1 tbsp. of lemon juice. Season evenly with about 1 tbsp. rub, patting it gently so it adheres. Let the ribs sit for 1 minute, giving the rub time to hydrate and set, then flip the racks and repeat the process on the meat side, using the remaining lemon juice and rub.

6. Place each rack of ribs on a large sheet of heavy-duty foil, meat-side-up. Fold the edges up and over the ribs, then cover with a second sheet of foil and crimp the edges to create a tightly sealed packet.

7. Set the ribs on the wire rack in the prepared baking sheet, transfer them to the oven, and roast until very tender. They should read at least 198°F (92°C) in the thickest part. More importantly, a probe or butter knife should slide in like it’s entering a jar of peanut butter, with almost no resistance. That should take 2½–3 hours, depending on rack size. Start checking after 2½ hours, briefly unwrapping the ribs every 30 minutes or so to insert a thermometer, then re-wrapping tightly.

8. Remove ribs from the oven and open the foil packet. Carefully pour off any juices (they will be hot), discard the foil packet, and gently transfer the ribs back to the wire rack-lined baking sheet (they will be very tender). Increase the oven temperature to 450°F (230°C).

9. Once the oven is at temperature, return ribs to oven and roast for 10 minutes, or until the tops are dry and lightly browned. Brush a generous layer of sauce onto the top of each rack (about ½ cup each) and return them to the oven until the sauce reduces to a sticky glaze, another 10 minutes.

10. Remove ribs from the oven and brush with the remaining sauce. Let ribs rest for 5–10 minutes before eating. Serve any remaining sauce on the side.

Make ahead: Ribs can be roasted and refrigerated, tightly wrapped, for up to 2 days before finishing. To serve, unwrap and place on a wire rack set over a foil-lined baking sheet. Warm in a 325°F (165°C) oven until heated through, 20–30 minutes, then remove ribs, increase oven temperature to 450°F (230°C), and proceed with steps 9 and 10.

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MONTGOMERY INN–STYLE BARBECUE SAUCE
Makes about 2.5 cups

For the first month I spent working on this recipe, I was trying to recreate exactly what was in the bottle, but something was missing.

Then, I read an Enquirer article about the sauce’s 2010s reformulation, which removed gluten and corn syrup (both high-fructose and standard). The process took two years, and given the difficulties of recreating a legacy flavor profile and texture with different ingredients, I couldn’t rule out some food-science magic.

So, my goal became to develop a throwback version of the sauce that’s easy to make in a home kitchen, like the one where Matula Gregory, wife of “Ribs King” Ted, created Montgomery Inn’s recipe in the first place. Putting corn syrup back in the formula gave the sauce the gloss and cling I was looking for. The rest fell into place soon after.

As is often the case with Midwestern heritage recipes, there’s no real secret ingredient. Past praise for Montgomery Inn’s sauce has mentioned the tamarind and molasses in the recipe. The truth is less romantic—though no less delicious: Per the ingredient list, both come from the Worcestershire.

Ingredients

1¾ cups (480 g) ketchup, such as Heinz
½ cup (120 g) water
2 tbsp. (30 g) Worcestershire sauce
¼ cup (60 g) distilled white vinegar
¼ cup (80 g) light corn syrup
½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar
1 tbsp. (9 g) onion powder
1½ tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. chili powder, such as McCormick
¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

1. Add all ingredients to a large saucepan and whisk to combine.

2. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and continue to simmer, stirring often to prevent scorching, until the sauce thickens enough that a whisk or fork leaves distinct lines that do not immediately disappear, 25–30 minutes.

3. Remove sauce from heat and let it cool to room temperature. Sauce will thicken further as it cools. For the best flavor and texture, refrigerate overnight before using. The sauce will keep for at least 1 month in an airtight container in the refrigerator.