Photograph courtesy Queen City Sausage
When “Sausage King” Elmer Hensler, and business partners Alois Stadler and Bob Westendorf, opened Queen City Sausage (QCS) in 1965, the business was one of 40 meat manufacturing plants in the city. More than six decades later, it’s the last one standing, thanks to businessman’s savvy and Hensler daughter’s commitment to running the business after his passing in August 2024.
Donna King assumed the role of QCS president with one goal in mind: to honor her father’s legacy by maintaining the high-quality product consumers have grown to know and love. “We are the same company with the same recipes and the same sausages,” King says. “We’ll always make the best product possible. We’ll never cheapen it, always using the best pork, beef, and pure hickory wood smoke.”
Photograph courtesy Queen City Sausage
QCS started out small—a single building on the west side of town, from which the owners would transport their goods to sell in Toledo, a less-competitive market than Porkopolis at the time. Ten years in, the business had its sausages on Kroger shelves after Hensler approached a meat buyer and setting up an appointment while shopping at the store.
Over the following decades, QCS expanded a bit at a time, both in product line and in size. Each addition brought new square footage, which was annexed and moved into nearby buildings on 14 separate occasions. (Hensler bought out the other partners in the ’90s.)
Photograph courtesy Queen City Sausage
In addition to its retail business, QCS also sponsored the Reds, FC Cincinnati, and the Florence Y’alls over numerous seasons. Plus, they company hosted sausage festivals at Newport on the Levee and donated and served upwards of 500,000 brats, mets, and goetta to area running events.
It’s no wonder King decided to keep the business going. Why mess with a perfectly oiled machine that’s well-loved by the city? “Elmer put his heart and soul and his entire life into this company,” she says. “Honoring his legacy and moving forward with his same recipes is rewarding for me.”
Although QCS offers 20 core products (from brats and mets to deli loaves like Leona, goetta, and head cheese) as sausage popularity tends to change with the season and region. Around here, King says the hot mets continue to be a best seller because there’s a lot of heat-loving people in Cincinnati.
“The heat doesn’t take away from the flavor, and the hickory smoke doesn’t take away from the spice,” she adds. “With the regular hot mets you taste the heat right away.”
Photograph courtesy Queen City Sausage
It’s the consistently good quality of QCS that led them to become the supplier of coney wieners for Skyline Chili, a partnership Hensler initiated before his passing.
“Elmer was always in Skyline handing out his business cards and telling them their coneys would be better with QCS,” King recalls.
Having done several promotions with the chili brand over the years, her husband Greg approached representatives again about making their wieners and sealed the deal. QCS has been making the Skyline coney wieners for a little over a year, having tweaked its own hot dog recipe based on Skyline’s guidelines.
Whether producing hot mets or coney wieners or anything in between, QCS’s commitment to quality has never wavered. “We use premium cuts of meat, and our spices are top-notch and hand mixed every day,” King says. “Plus, the hickory wood smoke makes a huge difference when compared to those made with liquid smoke. We are a craft sausage for a reason—a premium product.”
Ultimately, though, King acknowledges that to keep producing such a longstanding, quality product takes a team. “We are so proud of our company and our employees,” she says. “We couldn’t do any of this without them. We’re very tight-knit and proud of our products and want to make the best products out there. We love our sausage family.”
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