Managers will be on-site today until 6 p.m. at the new Pizza Hut location in Beavercreek at 1195 N. Fairfield Road. The chain is hiring for both new locations. The second Pizza Hut shop, set to open soon after Beavercreek opens during the last week of August, is nestled in the former United Dairy Farmers convenience store at 900 E. Dorothy Lane in Kettering.
Applications are being accepted for positions including management, drivers, customer-service reps and production team members. Any person interested can also visit jobs.pizzahut.com.
"We are expanding in Dayton, and we are very excited," said Carol Magazzeni, director of marketing and public relations for Hallrich Inc., based in Stow in northeast Ohio. Hallrich purchased the rights to operate Pizza Hut restaurants in the greater Dayton market from the Pizza Hut corporate company in June 2017.
The Beavercreek Pizza Hut location, formerly Papa Murphy’s restaurant that was located across from Beaver-Vu bowling alley north of U.S. 35, shut its doors in December 2017 as the result of a dispute between a franchise owner and corporate, according to a sign posted on the door of the restaurant.
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The Kettering space is adjacent to a newly opened OinkADoodleMoo barbecue restaurant, formerly Dayton Beer Company’s initial tasting room and brewery. Pizza Hut operated a carryout store for many years in the Fountain Square shopping center on Far Hills Avenue, but it shut down several years ago.
“We found two un-serviced areas, and we are happy to bring delivery and convenient pick-up service to Beavercreek and Kettering,” Magazzeni said.
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With the addition of Montgomery, Clark, Greene, Warren, Darke, Logan and Champaign counties, Hallrich now operates about two-thirds of the Pizza Hut restaurants in Ohio, the franchisee’s spokeswoman said.
Beavercreek officials approved a zoning permit for the North Fairfield Road location on Tuesday, April 24. That location will likely open before the Kettering location, although specific timelines have not been set, Magazzeni said.
The new Pizza Hut locations will join an already competitive Dayton-area pizza market, which has long been dominated by venerable hometown chains such as Cassano’s Pizza King and Marion’s Piazza; by national chains such as Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Little Caesar’s and Papa John’s; and by the dozens of smaller chains and single-store independents that call the Miami Valley home.
In recent years, other smaller, mostly regional chains have invaded those established market players’ turf, including LaRosa’s, Godfather’s, Dewey’s and Jet’s, among others.
>> RELATED: LaRosa’s in Huber Heights shuts its doors (November 2016)
More recently, “fast-casual” pizza chains that focus on customized, fast-baked pizzas have added a new layer of competition. Kettering-based Rapid Fired Pizza has led that surge locally, and Seattle-based MOD Pizza operates two Dayton-area restaurants. A third competitor, Cleveland-based PizzaFire shut down its only Dayton-area location late last year. LaRosa’s also has closed two of its Dayton-area locations since late 2016.
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