JUST IN: Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen to add new Kettering location

The local franchise owner for Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen confirmed today that he has finalized a deal to build a new restaurant on the site of a former PNC Bank branch at 4025 Wilmington Pike at East Stroop Road in front of a Meijer store.

Plans call for demolishing the former bank building, which shut down a year ago, and building a 3,200-square-foot restaurant, Dayton-area Popeyes franchisee Pat Gilligan said. The new Popeyes is projected to seat about 65 and could open as early as the end of this year, Gilligan said.

Along with two other new Popeyes restaurants in various stages of development in Englewood and Springboro, the chain known for its fried chicken and Cajun-style side dishes is poised to more than double its footprint in the Dayton-Springfield area, at a time when competition among fast-casual chicken restaurants is increasing rapidly across the Miami Valley.

The Englewood Popeyes will be located at 1100 S. Main St. (Ohio 48). Plans filed with the city of Englewood call for a 2,791-square-foot restaurant that would seat 46 diners and that would have a drive-through, to be built at that site.

Plans for a new restaurant in Springboro in the 800 block of West Central Avenue (Ohio 73), which we first reported last July, are scheduled to be submitted to city officials in early April, Gilligan told this news outlet in January.

Once a Dayton-area mainstay, Popeyes currently operates restaurants at 3796 Salem Ave. in Harrison Twp. and at 2134 S. Limestone St. in Springfield. A Sugarcreek Twp. location at 5800 Wilmington Pike near I-675 shut its doors in 2010. Gilligan purchased the Harrison Twp. and Springfield Popeyes locations in January 2016 and has owned Cincinnati-area Popeyes since 2006.

Popeyes had multiple locations in the Dayton area in the early 1980s, but those closed, and the region went without the Cajun-themed chicken chain for several years. When the current Salem Avenue Popeyes opened in 2001, devotees flocked to the restaurant for several days, causing waits of up to an hour.

Russ Mass and Bob Zavakos with the commercial realty firm of NAI Bergman represented the seller, PNC Bank, in the Kettering transaction.

Competition is growing more intense almost by the day in the chicken-restaurant market. Raising Cane’s will enter the Dayton-area region in the coming months with new restaurants in the works in Beavercreek and Washington Twp. Chick-fil-A opened two new Dayton-area restaurants — in Kettering and Troy — on the same day a few months ago. And Mike’s Nashville Hot has opened new restaurants on Far Hills Avenue in Centerville and in Austin Landing in Miami Twp. in recent months.

The region also is stocked with KFC, Lee’s Famous Recipe and Church’s chicken restaurants, as well as multiple wing-themed restaurants, some entering the market for the first time.

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About the Author

Mark Fisher

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.