By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

GREEN TOWNSHIP - Ronald S. Larkin, founder of Ron's Roost on Race Road in Bridgetown, died Sunday at Mercy Franciscan Hospital Western Hills. He was 88.

Mr. Larkin's restaurant - with its giant fiberglass rooster on the roof - is a west-side landmark. Opened in 1964 as a Hitching Post Restaurant, it has a menu that boasts chicken prepared any way anyone could want it - from old-fashioned fried chicken to more-refined chicken cordon bleu.

A Price Hill native, Mr. Larkin attended St. Lawrence Grade School and graduated from Elder High School.

He turned 15 at the beginning of the Great Depression and took a job as an usher at the Western Plaza Theater in Price Hill, working his way up to projectionist.

Movies became almost an obsession during that era, and Mr. Larkin found a career. He joined the Projectionists Union and worked at movie houses all around Cincinnati, according to his son Mark of Green Township.

In 1960, Mr. Larkin bought a Hitching Post franchise on Harrison Avenue. Four years later, he built a new restaurant with the same name on Race Road.

Around 1971, a "gentleman came in for lunch one afternoon and he had a chicken on his truck that he was delivering to Missouri," said Mr. Larkin's son. His dad was so taken with it that "we got one of our own."

On Jan. 1, 1976, Mr. Larkin's Hitching Post became Ron's Roost. Mr. Larkin, along with his wife, Olga, and both of his sons, worked there.

Mr. Larkin was a member of the Price Hill-Western Hills Kiwanis.

In addition to his son Mark and his wife of 47 years, Olga, survivors include: another son, Ron of Green Township; and two grandchildren.

Visitation is 9:30 a.m. Wednesday in the greeting room at St. Antoninus Church, 1500 Linneman Road in Covedale, followed by Mass of Christian burial at 10:30 a.m. Burial is at St. Joseph New Cemetery, 4500 Foley Road in Price Hill.

Memorials: St. Antoninus Endowment Fund, 1500 Linneman Road, Cincinnati, OH 45238; or Hospice of Cincinnati, 4310 Cooper Road, Cincinnati, OH 45242.

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E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com