I grew up in Pittsburgh, and about an hour north of Pittsburgh was the town of Butler. In Butler there was a famous Hot Dog Shoppe called, The Hot Dog Shoppe. They had a very distinctive meat sauce they served on the hot dogs, this is the recipe from Food.com:

3 lbs ground beef
1 1�„2 cups diced onions
1�„8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 1�„2 tablespoons paprika
1�„2 tablespoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
14 ounces ketchup
6 cups water
1 additional cup water and 1 cup flour, (mixed well, so not lumpy, like a slurry, as if you are making gravy)

Brown and chop the ground meat in a 4 quart.
pan.
Drain off excess grease.
Add each of the spices, one at a time, and stir after each one.
After all the spices are in the mixture, it should be a pastey consistency.
Add the ketchup; stir in the water.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
Keep the heat low and simmer for 2 hours.
Add the flour and water mixture.
This mixture will blend easily if you mix in your blender before adding to the rest of the sauce.
The excess sauce may be frozen.
This sauce is supposed to be from the famous hot dog shop in my area.

My comments:

This is pretty much the recipe I got about 30 years ago. It makes a LOT of sauce; you might want to consider cutting the recipe in half.

I live in the south now, as I can describe the taste of the sauce it is a little reminiscent of Brunswick Stew because of the cloves.

The Butler Hot Dog Shoppe closed a few years back.