Dayton pizza restaurant shuts its doors after 12 years

Corleone’ Pizza had been under new management for about 6 months, ‘but it didn’t work out.’

A locally owned and independent pizza shop that has operated in Dayton for more than 12 years has closed its doors and has no plans to relocate or reopen, according to its manager.

“I took it over for about six months, but it didn’t work out,” the manager of Corleone’s Pizza, 960 Patterson Road just west of Wilmington Pike, told this news outlet this afternoon, Jan. 17.

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The manager, who declined to give his name, said the small pizza restaurant had operated from the Patterson Road space since 2007. A second Corleone’s location near State Route 725 and Lyons Road in Washington Twp. closed several years ago, he said.

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Credit: Mark Fisher

Credit: Mark Fisher

The shop’s owners were going to shut the restaurant down in mid-2019, the manager said, but he volunteered to try to turn it around. But he said he wasn’t able to generate enough business to keep it afloat.

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An employee of a dry-cleaning business next door to the pizza shop said she was surprised to come to work early this week and find the pizza shop closed with “For Rent” signs in the windows.

“We weren’t expecting it,” the employee said.

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