Richards timeline
Oct. 24, 1955: Richards Pizza opens on Dixie Highway.
July 25, 1956: The West Side Richards opens at the corner of Main and "D" streets.
1970: The current West Side location at 417 Main Street, Richards' flagship restaurant, opens.
1987 & 1988: Richard Underwood's daughters, Karen and Gayl, begin their careers as the second generation in the family business.
Oct. 30, 1993: Hamilton celebrates "Richards Pizza Day" in honor of the restaurant's 13 millionth customer.
February 2004: Trenton location opens.
September 2006: Fairfield location opens.
April 2009: Monroe location opens.
HAMILTON — Richard Underwood, who opened Richards Pizza in 1955, first learned of pizza seven years earlier in Florida when a woman he was out on a date with suggested they go get a pizza pie.
“I said ‘You want to get a piece of pie?’ and she said, “No, I want to get a pizza. You know, it’s got tomatoes and cheese on it?’
“I couldn’t imagine a fruit pie with tomatoes and cheese on it,” Underwood said, laughing.
Six decades later, it’s difficult to imagine Underwood unfamiliar with anything having to do with pizza.
A new location of the business he founded opened Friday at 3015 Dixie Highway, replacing the one that opened Oct. 24, 1955 at 2343 Dixie Highway.
That location, just half a mile away, shut down Oct. 31 to allow workers to carry out a weeklong move.
Co-owners Karen and Gayl Underwood, Richard’s daughters, said the original location created a great deal of history, both personal and public, since opening day, when it welcomed 10 customers and garnered $12.04 in sales.
“We have the sales journal from the original opening,” Karen Underwood said. “It’s kind of cool.”
Since taking over the business from their father in the late 1980s, the two sisters have opened three additional locations in Trenton, Fairfield and Monroe.
Moving the original location to a new place, which formerly housed an Arby’s, allows the thriving business to escape its formerly constrictive confines, Karen Underwood said.
“There were three parking spaces and five booths,” she said of the now-closed location. “We’re (moving) to a 44-seat dining room and a really nice big parking lot ... and a drive-through window. You don’t have to drive around the block waiting for one of the parking spaces to become available.”
Richard Underwood, 83, started the Richards Pizza in Hamilton when he was 28 years old and the only other pizza restaurant was a bar near the courthouse.
“That was actually the first one and he’s not in business anymore,” he said.
The best part of owning the business has been developing something original, Underwood said.
“We made everything from scratch ... and I think that’s why the business is a success today,” he said, “We didn’t just buy a can (of sauce) and open it, we developed our recipes and we always used the best products.”
Underwood, who has had to deal with more economic downturns than just the current one, said what’s got him through each one is good business practices.
“Having a good product, a consistent one, there’s just no substitute,” he said. “People like it this year, they like it the same next year. They don’t want you to change.”
Underwood said he is glad that his daughters are carrying on the business he started but realizes that the business philosophies of the two generations don’t always mesh.
“If they’re going to be aggressive and run the business, they have to do it on their own,” he said. “You have to step back and let them do their thing.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4541 or Eric.Schwartzberg@coxinc.com.
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