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2 restaurants open their 1st Dayton-area locations today

Two restaurant chains are poised to make their Dayton-area debut on the same day Tuesday, Aug. 30 — and both plan to add more locations throughout the region.

The first PizzaFire restaurant in southwest Ohio will open at 11 a.m. Tuesday at 4325 Far Hills Ave. in Kettering — and the Cleveland-based quick-serve chain will introduce itself by giving away vouchers for one free pizza a month for a year to the first 100 people in line Tuesday morning. The chain's Facebook page also said identical free-pizza vouchers will be handed out "randomly" throughout the day.

Across town, Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers will open its doors the same morning at 5501 Wilmington Pike at Whipp Road across the street from the Cornerstone of Centerville development. A spokeswoman for Freddy's said no special events or food giveaways are planned for opening day.

The Kettering PizzaFire restaurant will employ about 20, and will occupy more than 3,000 square feet in a retail center that also includes Firehouse Subs and Chipotle. The 3,200-square-foot Freddy’s Frozen Custard restaurant will employ about 85 and will seat about 100 in space that previously housed a KFC restaurant.

New pizza chain to launch its first Dayton-area location in Kettering

Ryan Rao, PizzaFire’s director of business development, said his company plans to add three or four more locations in the Dayton region. The company’s web site lists Beavercreek as a “coming-soon” location for a potential second Dayton-area restaurant. Rao told this outlet last week that he is still negotiating the lease for a potential Beavercreek restaurant.

PizzaFire has six locations in the Cleveland-Akron area and two in suburban Columbus, and more than 20 in the works in northeast and central Ohio.

Each PizzaFire restaurant offers a choice of 40 toppings, six sauces and five cheeses built to order and cooked in an 800-degree oven in three minutes. The concept is similar to Kettering-based Rapid Fired Pizza, which launched less than a year ago and which now operates five Dayton-area locations, and to Seattle-based MOD Pizza, which has signed agreements to open restaurants in Englewood and Centerville.

Pizza wars poised to re-ignite with ‘fast-casual’ chains eyeing SW Ohio

Although it doesn’t have a cafeteria-style serving line as the quick-serve pizza chains do, Dorothy Lane Market has served Neopolitan-style pizzas made to order and cooked in 800-degree ovens at its Washington Twp. and Springboro stores for about five years.

PSP Foods, the franchisee for Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers’ Ohio restaurants, owns and operates two Cincinnati-area Freddy’s locations in Amelia and Milford, and is building out three more, one in West Chester and two in Cincinnati. And the chain is looking to expand its Dayton-area presence.

“We want to focus on making sure we get this location open, operating smoothly and doing well before we announce any expansion plans, but we’re always on the lookout for sites that would be a great fit for Freddy’s, and we hope to expand our presence in Dayton over the next few years,” Matt Saunders, head of development for PSP Foods, told this news outlet in May.

New burgers-and-ice-cream restaurant coming to Centerville

Freddy’s joins Bagger Dave’s Burger Tavern, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Panda Express, and MOD Pizza in making or planning their entry into the Dayton-area market at or near the Cornerstone of Centerville development off I-675 at Wilmington Pike.

The Wichita, Kansas-based Freddy’s, founded in 2002, operates about 200 restaurants in 30 states from California to Pennsylvania. The restaurant’s menu includes ground-beef burgers, Vienna Beef hot dogs and shoestring fries, as well as an assortment of desserts, including chocolate and vanilla frozen custard. The restaurants’ atmosphere is designed to evoke the America of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

HAPPENING TODAY: Rapid Fired Pizza heads south and west for its newest lease signing

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