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New pizza restaurants coming to Dayton area

More chains opening in attractive area market.

Rob Haverstock, the assistant day manager at the Marion's Piazza in Miami Twp., makes pizza for lunch customers Tuesday Jan. 4, 2011. Marion's Piazza is scheduled to open a restaurant in Troy on Feb. 14, the company's first expansion in two decades.

Lisa Powell Rob Haverstock, the assistant day manager at the Marion's Piazza in Miami Twp., makes pizza for lunch customers Tuesday Jan. 4, 2011. Marion's Piazza is scheduled to open a restaurant in Troy on Feb. 14, the company's first expansion in two decades.

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By Mark Fisher, Staff Writer Updated 11:03 AM Monday, February 13, 2012

Several brash upstarts are trying to capture a prime Miami Valley slice of the $35.2 billion-a-year national pizza market.

These market infiltrators are poised to open multiple new restaurants in the coming months in every corner of southwest Ohio, generating several dozen new jobs. These new pizza shops will jump headfirst into a seemingly saturated market that has already attracted 11 of the 13 biggest pizza chains in the country competing against one another and against two well-established Dayton-based chains, Cassano’s Pizza King and Marion’s Piazza. Meanwhile, dozens of independent, single-location shops hold their own against the onslaught of chain competition.

Ohio ranks in the top 10 in pizza restaurants per capita, with about 3,300 stores statewide, according to PMQ Pizza Magazine — and the Miami Valley is certainly doing its part to maintain that ranking. The region is attractive to pizza chains for many reasons: its density of housing, a demographic mix that mirrors the country’s, proximity to major interstates, and a robust proportion of hungry college students.

“Dayton is a very competitive market, but it’s a good market,” said Chuck Winters, franchise owner of two Godfather’s Pizza restaurants that are part of the frontal assault on the Miami Valley’s existing pizza hierarchy. The competition reaches a fever pitch this Super Bowl weekend, when nearly six out of 10 people who order from restaurants for the big game choose pizza, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Here’s just a small taste of the latest efforts to capture the allegiances — and dollars — of the Miami Valley’s pizza enthusiasts:

• Romeo’s Pizza, a Cleveland-based chain, is poised to open its second Dayton-area location later this month, in Kettering, a year after opening its Beavercreek location. A third Romeo’s will likely open in the Englewood area in late 2012, and franchise owners will then look to open two more, in Troy and Piqua, according to Stan Combs, operations manager for Romeo’s Dayton-area stores.

• Jet’s Pizza, a Michigan-based chain and the nation’s 13th largest, is a month or two away from opening its second Dayton-area location, in Beavercreek. Jet’s opened its first Dayton-area store in Washington Twp. in 2009. Jet’s officials are already looking for a third location, probably in the Springboro area, and “the idea is to expand throughout the entire Dayton area,” said Drew Jenkins, Jet’s general manager.

• Cousin Vinny’s Pizza — a Dayton-based chain that has grown to 11 locations throughout the Miami Valley, with much of that growth in the last three years — plans to open two more locations before the end of this year, one in the Mason area on or near Tylersville Road, and one that would serve the Tipp City-Troy area, according to Rick Allen, co-owner of Cousin Vinny’s.

• Godfather’s Pizza, based in Omaha, Neb., and the nation’s 10th largest chain, operates restaurants in Huber Heights and Centerville. “We’ve been well-received here, so we’re looking the whole area over,” franchisee Winters said.

• Dewey’s Pizza, based in Cincinnati, is planning a new restaurant in Centerville to add to its existing Dayton location, while another Cincinnati chain, LaRosa’s, now has a dozen locations in the Dayton area and northern Cincinnati.

• Established Dayton-based chains are fighting back: Marion’s Piazza later this month will open its first new location in more than two decades — a 500-seat restaurant in Troy — and will follow later this year with its ninth restaurant, in Mason. Cassano’s Pizza King opened a new Centerville store in November.

All are riding a national trend. Pizza sales in the U.S. have been on the rise, increasing 2.2 percent in 2010 to $35.2 billion, the most recent sales figures available, according to PMQ Pizza magazine’s 2011 Pizza Power Report released in September. And that gain came despite a 1 percent drop in the total number of pizza restaurants nationwide, to 65,283.

The economic downturn has helped drive up pizza restaurants’ sales, as consumers gravitated toward foods they found familiar, comforting and relatively inexpensive, said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic Inc., a Chicago-based food service research and consulting firm. And pizza restaurants have expanded their menu offerings to include chicken wings, sandwiches, salads and desserts, also boosting sales.

Young families pressed for time are cooking less at home than their predecessors did, but they still want to eat their dinners at home, Tristano said. They can’t afford to eat out frequently, making a carryout pizza dinner eaten at home an appealing option, he said.

But what is it about the Miami Valley and southwest Ohio that makes it such an attractive market for pizza restaurants? Tristano said Dayton’s demographics are representative of the country as a whole, making the region a tempting test market of sorts for companies — including pizza chains — evaluating or launching new products. And it doesn’t hurt that Dayton is a college town, with a core group of consumers in just the right age range for prime pizza appreciation.

Officials at some of the chains that are relatively new to the region also pointed out that the Miami Valley has dozens of neighborhoods with single-family homes packed fairly close together — a plus for pizza chains that focus on delivery and want large numbers of potential customers within a short drive.

Despite the intense competition from national, local and regional chains in the Miami Valley, independent pizza restaurants are finding ways to survive, and even thrive. “We’re holding steady,” said John Shearer, owner of Joe’s Pizzeria at Smithville Road and Airway Road, which has been around for a half-century and which now shares the intersection with a Domino’s Pizza right across the street. “We have a strong customer base that grew up in this neighborhood ... and we’re still pulling in new customers all the time. As long as you put out the quality, people will come.”

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