Matula Kalomeres Gregory, matriarch of the Montgomery Inn restaurant family, died Monday, June 23. She was 97.
Gregory was a king maker. Her secret sauce was the crown that made her late husband, Ted Gregory, the Ribs King.
She met Ted in 1950 – he said it was love at first sight – and they married that same year. In 1951, the couple bought McCabe’s Inn in Montgomery, renaming it the Montgomery Inn. It was a family affair, with Matula’s sister, Tasha, her dad, Charlie Kalomeres, and Ted’s parents, Thomas and Tasia Gregory, all pitching in to make the business a success.
When Matula brought barbecued ribs and sauce to the family’s bar, it was the start of something big. Patrons loved them, so Ted asked her to bring them again. They were such a hit that the Gregorys began serving the ribs on Friday and Saturday nights and a legendary local dining dynasty began.
Within the first 10 years of opening the Montgomery Inn, the Gregorys had four children: Tom, Dean, Vickie and Terry. Each of them and son-in-law Evan Andrews eventually joined the business.
The rich and famous who visited Cincinnati made it a point to stop for Montgomery Inn ribs. Sports giants like Johnny Bench and Arnold Palmer, a quartet of U.S. presidents that includes Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Bill Clinton. Rosemary Clooney served ribs swimming in Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce at her 1997 wedding to Dante DePaolo. The recipe is a closely guarded secret that was known only by Matula and her daughters.
Today, the Gregory family operates two restaurants – the original Inn in Montgomery and the Boat House in the East End.
The business has more than 500 employees and it sells more than 20 tons of ribs a week, and 500,000 gallons of barbecue sauce a year. More than 1.4 million bottles of Matula Gregory’s sauce are sold annually.
Gregory was happy not being in the spotlight. “I’m the silent one,” she told an Enquirer reporter in 1990. “I don’t need to be interviewed, she said then. “I don’t like seeing my name in the paper.”
She was just happy that generations of Cincinnatians have enjoyed her original sauce. She often downplayed her role in the family’s success.
“The original sauce doesn’t make me feel any different from a plain, simple housewife,” she told another reporter in 2014. “That’s how I started: I made dinner and brought it to Ted because he worked late.”
She was a great cook. Diners at the Montgomery Inn sampled Matula Gregory’s work without knowing it. Montgomery Inn Barbecue Sauce wasn’t her only gift to the ribs restaurant’s customers.
Lots of dishes she made at home for her husband and four children were prototypes for items that later turned up on the menu.
At the heart of her culinary success was a simple mantra: Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t feed your family.
She remained active at the restaurants behind the scenes following Ted’s death in 2001. She visited frequently, and all the staff knew what she wanted to see: neat and clean. She was engaged in the business. She said she always knew the restaurant would be a success; she just had no idea how successful it would be.
She was proud of the success and was inducted into the Cincinnati Business Hall of Fame in 2015. Her husband was honored posthumously at the induction ceremony at Xavier University’s Cintas Center. The hall recognizes leaders for business acumen and community involvement.
The community gave the Gregory family success and the family gave back.
The Gregorys routinely supported charities such as FreeStore Food Bank, Bob Hope House, the Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, Sycamore and Moeller high schools, Greater Cincinnati Down Syndrome Association and the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges.
The giving was frequently done quietly because Ted and Matula Gregory believed when you’re blessed, it’s your obligation to help others.
Matula Gregory was loved. Her husband told a reporter in 1989 that she was his whole life. “If I ever lost her, I’d be a lost ball in the weeds.”
And Matula Gregory, sometimes called the Queen of Ribs as an homage to her husband’s “Ribs King” nickname, knew she was blessed.
“I have two loves in my life,” she said in 2011. “My family and this business.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Matula Gregory, Montgomery Inn ribs sauce developer, dead at 97
Reporting by Jennie Key, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
