In May 2015, the founding family returned to the company's top management when one of the founders' sons, Roger David, became CEO upon the retirement of Mike Rohrkemper. In the past, Gold Star Chili has also hired other Reds players for promotional campaigns, most notably Pete Rose.

For the promotion, the store offered customers 16-inch (410 mm) miniature Louisville Slugger baseball bats for US$1.99, and Pérez did various in-store signing sessions for fans. During his baseball years Pérez's nickname was 'Big Dog', and since the chain was ready to promote their new foot long cheese coney, Gold Star saw a promotional opportunity, naming it 'Big Doggie'. In 1993 Tony Pérez, then manager of the Cincinnati Reds and former member of the Big Red Machine, kicked off a promotion campaign for the restaurant.

For the next quarter-century, the Daoud/David family brought in CEOs with outside experience. The brothers, some of whom eventually changed their family name to David, continued to run the restaurant as it grew into a chain until retiring in 1990. As a result, the brothers changed the restaurant name to Gold Star Chili and removed many of the other items from their menu. However, they also had a chili recipe that they began modifying, soon finding that customers were ordering the chili more than any of the other menu items. Īs the original name suggests, the original vision for their restaurant was primarily hamburgers. The Daoud brothers immigrated from a village in Jordan in 1957. Gold Star Chili was founded in 1965 by four Daoud brothers (Fahhad, Fahid, Basheer, and Bishara) in Mount Washington, originally under the name Hamburger Heaven. Gold Star Chili is the 'Official Chili' of the Cincinnati Bengals. Washington in 1965 by four Daoud brothers, immigrants from Jordan. The original restaurant was established in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Mt. Gold Star Chili is a restaurant chain based in Cincinnati, Ohio, that sells Cincinnati chili.

Gold star family restaurant menu