Cincinnati's Pumpkin Pie Wars Almost As Big As Chili Wars

Food rivalries are always amusing: Anthony Bourdain vs. Paula Deen, Shake Shack vs. In-N-Out, and it looks like a new one is popping up in Cincinnati. The Wall Street Journal reports that two family-owned eateries Busken Bakery and Frisch's Big Boy have been battling it out for the past two years, one-upping each other in pie puns and marketing stunts.

It apparently started in 2010 when Frisch's bought a billboard to advertise its pumpkin pies, saying, "Hello Pumpkin." Unfortunately (or funnily enough), it was located right over Busken's flagship.

The response? The Busken boys bought an adjacent billboard with the sign, "That's 'Mr. Pumpkin' to you, Big Boy."

Since then, the gimmicks have escalated. There was "You had me at hello," from Frisch's, which received "Sorry Big Boy, this pumpkin's taken."

"I didn't plan it that way," Karen Maier, vice president of marketing for Frisch's, told WSJ. "But I promise you, after the first year I ordered the board for the next year."

And of course this escalated into a video titled Pie Wars 2012, where the Busken Boys hijack a Big Boy mascot statue, wrapping it in a Busken apron while wearing amazing ski masks with mustaches (seriously, where can we get those?). Watch the hijinks below.