Hot Head Burritos seeks to move HQ to Kettering

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

Hot Head Burritos is seeking to move its headquarters to Kettering and asking for incentives from the city to aid the project.

The fast-casual burrito chain has grown over the last decade with the help of franchising to 73 restaurants and is for now headquartered in West Chester Twp.

Kelly Gray, Hot Head director of real estate, said the goal is to move the Hot Head headquarters to share a space at 2795 Culver Ave. with another restaurant chain under the same owners, Rapid Fired Pizza.

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“We’re trying to get everything back under one roof with operation efficiencies and sharing of resources,” Gray said.

The Kettering city council will consider tonight giving an incentive to help Hot Head pay for the renovation of the Rapid Fired headquarters to make room for Hot Head and add additional parking. The incentive would be $50,000 reimbursable grant or 40 percent of the building renovation and parking lot construction costs, if less.

The company told the city that the incentive would help it retain 24 employees in the city and hire an additional 25 to 50 corporate employees over the next three years.

Gray said the company would like to move both Hot Head and Rapid Fired under one roof, either in the city of Kettering with the help of an incentive for the renovation work or to look for another location where they could both fit together.

Gray said they are early in the planning process, but the remodel of the Kettering building would likely cost between $45,000 and $75,000 and it would cost about $30,000 to $50,000 to repave a vacant lot by the building for additional parking.

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Rapid Fired Pizza, a fast-casual pizza chain, has 23 stores and Hot Head has 73 stores. There are five Rapid Fired locations under construction to open before the end of this year, two Hot Head stores under construction and about 12 additional deals under each brand in negotiations, Gray said.

Hot Head started with a Kettering store in 2007 and is in eight states. The company also has been renovating some of its older stores and has added alcoholic beverages, with an emphasis on craft beer and margaritas, at several of its Dayton-area locations.

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