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Two pizza chains planning to enter SW Ohio market

MOD Pizza has franchisee looking for locations throughout region
Business
By Mark Fisher
Sept 30, 2015
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Two new fast-bake, made-to-order pizza chains are planning to enter the Dayton area’s already highly competitive pizza market, each with as many as 10 locations across southwest Ohio.

Both MOD Pizza, founded in Seattle in 2008, and Pizzafire, a new chain launched earlier this year in northeast Ohio by the founder of Romeo’s Pizza, utilize a Chipotle-style serving line in which diners watch their custom-ordered pizzas prepared and then cooked quickly in high-temperature ovens. A restaurant with a similar concept — Rapid Fired Pizza, co-founded by Kettering-based Hot Head Burritos co-founder Ray Wiley — opened three weeks ago on Ohio 725 in Washington Twp.

Of the two chains targeting the Dayton area, MOD Pizza is farther along in its development efforts. It has entered into an agreement with a franchise partner, Lexington, Ky.-based Cool Dough Development, which is already scouting out locations in the area.

“We’re looking at Centerville, Englewood, the UD area, Kettering … we’re looking all over the Dayton area,” said Garyen Denning, managing partner of Cool Dough Development. “We intend to have one or two locations open in 2016.”

Plans call for opening 10 MOD locations in the Cincinnati-Dayton region, including three to five in the Dayton-Springfield area, Denning said.

The newer Pizzafire chain has opened restaurants in recent weeks in Cleveland and Akron, will open four or five more in northeast Ohio before the end of the year, and is looking for a franchisee or franchisees in the Dayton-Cincinnati region, according to Ryan Rao, Pizzafire’s director of franchise sales. The chain was founded by Sean Brauser, the founder of Romeo’s Pizza, which . Romeo’s operates 34 locations in Ohio, and previously had franchise-owned pizza carryouts in Beavercreek and Kettering that operated briefly before closing in 2012.

Rao said Pizzafire’s goal is to open 100 units in five years, including about 10 in the Dayton-Cincinnati region. “We see the Cincinnati and Dayton region as a growth market for us,” Rao said.

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About the Author

Mark Fisher, a 1981 graduate of Ohio State University and a 1976 graduate of Beavercreek High School, is a third-generation Dayton-area resident who has worked for the Dayton Daily News since 1983. He covered higher education and K-12 education accountability issues for nearly 20 years before taking over the food and dining beat in 2006.