Zip's Cafe • 1926

In Mount Lookout's creaky-floored corner tavern, original owner Zip Kirschner's hand-pattied cheeseburger — still made with beef from Avril-Bleh & Sons — has outlasted Prohibition, six owners, and a century of Cincinnati dining trends. A model train circles overhead in the dim-lit dining room, where the back bar once served as a Prohibition-era code room for sports gambling and illicit pints. Step in for that same Zipburger, topped deluxe-style on a Klosterman bun, and tomato-forward chili that defies Cincinnati's five-way tradition.