Fireside didn't get money for the restaurant. They got money to renovate the building into apartments and a storefront. The restaurant part is privately funded to my understanding.

I went to Firehouse Pizza in Walnut Hills for the first time.  I think this place is doomed.  They got the space for something like $1 from the city.  Will there be the same outrage when they lock the doors in a year?

 

Did Firehouse actually get any money from the city though, or are they leasing the property through the developer? The developer was the one who got that block for $1 but I can't find anything online about what their relationship is in terms of operating the restaurant. But aside from that, there are all sorts of incentives and abatements given out for new development in up and coming neighborhoods like Walnut Hills, but I can't really think of another situation where someone looking to open a restaurant in an already high demand area was handed nearly a million dollars in city money to spend on furniture, fixtures and equipment. It's a more tangible sum, which is part of what is generating the outrage. The remainder of the outrage is being generated in response to the owners own comments.

 

 

I don't know the details of the deal.  It's possible he's got this restaurant up and running simply to show that he's "doing something" and then he looks to clean up 10-15 years from now with the pizza place acting as a loss leader.   

 

The problem with wood fired pizza is you can't do delivery.  So like Pomadorie's, this guy is leaving tens of thousands if not well over $100,000 in business on the table every year.  Delivery costs a business owner almost nothing since the drivers have their own cars and they make minimum wage.  Meanwhile the delivery guys advertise the sit-in restaurant and vice-verse.  Delivery pays the bills on slow nights whereas this place is going to be struggling to do $200 in business on a Monday night.  That's why a traditional pizza place is such a solid business. 

 

 

So how is the pizza?

 

It's weird how multiple people say they have been there, yet no one has reported this most important information.

The pizza was good. It's essentially the exact same pizza that the Fireside Wagon serves at events like Second Sunday, City Flea, etc. So if you've ever had it you know what to expect.

 

The only downside I saw in their menu was that they didn't have much else outside of pizza. In the future they said they would add more items, but they don't have a traditional stove/oven. So they can't serve foods that require that prep. They can make some really unique wood-fired items, though. Hopefully they create an expanded menu in the near future with some interesting main courses outside of pizza.

I went to Firehouse Pizza in Walnut Hills for the first time.  I think this place is doomed.  They got the space for something like $1 from the city.  Will there be the same outrage when they lock the doors in a year?

 

Jeez ... We got Mr. Positive over here! lol

with over $19 million in sales for 2013, Marion's in Dayton quashes the idea that you need delivery to be successful.

with over $19 million in sales for 2013, Marion's in Dayton quashes the idea that you need delivery to be successful.

 

I have never heard of this place but a quick web search shows 7 locations, or approximately $7,000-8,000 in business per store 365 nights per year.  I have a really hard time believing that a sit-down pizza restaurant in Dayton is regularly doing $7,000 Mondays. 

I believe it, I grew up next to one.  One thing they had at least when I was a kid was an arcade, and they also have a bar (I guess they were a barcade before it was cool to be one), it was a big draw for people in South Suburban Dayton...  Lots of people held parties there too as it was a large space.

^^You've never heard of Marion's?  That's like going to Cincinnati and never hearing of LaRosa's.  Also, there are 9 locations (even one near West Chester!) and it's even more amazing that they just STARTED taking credit cards last year.

^But Jake was a delivery driver once, so I wouldn't question his intimate knowledge of the pizza industry.

Marion's is a significant regional chain.

 

"Glass said Marion's annual sales exceed $10 million, with little advertising."

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2002/12/02/story6.html

 

It has some of the best pizza I've had for Ohio. Sorry, LaRosa.

You know what, I never thought about that but I've never seen an advertisement for Marion's.  Not on television, not on billboards, not even in the papers.

with over $19 million in sales for 2013, Marion's in Dayton quashes the idea that you need delivery to be successful.

You know what, I never thought about that but I've never seen an advertisement for Marion's.  Not on television, not on billboards, not even in the papers.

 

This pizza chain seems to defy the Mecklenborgian Pizza Economics Model! :-P

Deweys also does not deliver...

Marion's is a significant regional chain.

 

"Glass said Marion's annual sales exceed $10 million, with little advertising."

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2002/12/02/story6.html

 

It has some of the best pizza I've had for Ohio. Sorry, LaRosa.

 

Agreed, and my pizza tastes are way different now than then.  I can't stand LaRosa's since I've moved - way too sweet.  Though as a kid I enjoyed it (I knew it existed too ;) ).

LaRosa's is bad.

 

Cassano's is delish.

 

Never had Marion's.

I helped opened their 7th, and smallest, store in 1991 on the site of an old Casano's. Eventually managed several of their stores in the 90's and back then all 7 had sales over 1 million with the 3 largest locations over 2 million.

 

They did run commercials in the 80s... in it they made fun of pizza joints that delivered. I believe two nuns ordered a pizza and the driver crashed into their house. Wish someone would upload this to YouTube!

 

 

A good story on their success: A Conversation with Roger Glass, Marion’s Piazza - September 25, 2013

^But Jake was a delivery driver once, so I wouldn't question his intimate knowledge of the pizza industry.

 

Does someone who has worked for over 2,000 shifts in various restaurants know more about restaurants than someone who hasn't?     

Well, apparently, yes. No offense, but you were flat-out wrong about Marion's and Fireside.

Is Marion's the pizza joint that has like a sausage crumb style???

Anybody remember what getting pizza used to be like before like 1997? Yeah, you had a few nice pizza restaurants in every town, but you also had... the place with like 3 tables that clearly focused on delivery. You'd go in there, order a pizza, sit at an orange Formica table that wobbled badly in one of those plastic chairs with the three slots in it that looked like it was stolen from the middle school band room. There would be random fridges and restaurant equipment in the dining room or if you got lucky, bales of pizza boxes. There wouldn't be any music on, and maybe there'd be one arcade game that was unplugged because the monitor was toast. And it had the wood paneling sides on it rather than the original art (a "re-cab" for those who know). A lot of times these were in small towns and they'd be renting an ill-fitting space because looking back the rent had to be near zero. Lighting was either way too bright or spotty as hell.

 

I remember ones like this in an old 1960s bank branch in Ashville and a house in Circleville. I bet there's quite a few still like that in Appalachia.

Yeah, there were a bunch of places like that around when I was a kid in Cincinnati.  One chain was Trotta's and another was Angelo's.  Then there was Snappy Tomato Pizza, which crept across the Ohio River for about 10 years but has since retreated to where it came from -- various small and antiquated strip malls along NKY county roads typically shared with title loan and tanning places. 

 

There are two major divisions of pizza places, resulting in four basic types.  The first division is between a restaurant that features pizza, then a place whose model is built around delivery and carry-out but might also have a restaurant.  The second division is between places that make their own dough and sauce on the premises and cook the pizzas in a stone or wood-fired oven versus the places that get their food frozen from a commissary and run the pizzas through a conveyor-belt oven. 

 

The carryout/delivery+restaurant is the strongest business model because the carryout/delivery business advertises the dine-in restaurant and people in the restaurant see lines of people carrying out and delivery guys coming and going.  This can work with frozen commissary pizza (Larosa's, Domino's) or with homemade "real" pizza (Adriatico's). 

 

When you do wood-fired pizza, you say I'm going to permanently cut myself out of one of the most capital unintensive ways to make money in the restaurant business.  Having a delivery service costs you practically nothing up-front, plus you can pull that trick where you make the drivers do the closing clean-up since they make less than the cooks.  Plus, as I mentioned before, your physical pizzas are being seen, smelled, and eaten by innocent bystanders all over town AKA FREE ADVERTISING. 

 

^^ The old Adriatico's location was just like that, though now I don't even remember if they did have any tables but I'm pretty sure I ate pizza there as a drunk freshmen anyways.

 

^ There is still a Snappy Tomato buffet downtown, open only for lunch on weekdays. It's one of the best value lunches one can find downtown. There are still a lot of Angilo's spread around the suburbs but I haven't been to one since the early 2000's so I don't know if they still fit the mold described by GCrites above. The air in the one I frequented as a kid was so greasy that you almost had a residue on your skin by the time you left, even if you were just picking up.

 

The downtown location does great lunch business. Snappy is also in Fairfax delivering to most of the East Side and I believe they are in Dent and Liberty Township as well.

The downtown location does great lunch business. Snappy is also in Fairfax delivering to most of the East Side and I believe they are in Dent and Liberty Township as well.

 

They also have a location north of Lawrenceburg in the West-Harrison IN area.

STP has a location in Burlington, KY.

I only eat there once every 17 years.

 

STP has a location in Burlington, KY.

 

Stone Temple Pilots?

 

Anyone care to answer my question RE: sausage crumbs ... I don't know why, but I'm curious as to whether that's the pizza joint you guys are talking about?

This is Marion's

 

 

I don't know about "sausage crumbs" but the sausage is shredded.

Yep, it's Marions that you are thinking of:

 

https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=956&q=marions+piazza+sausage&oq=marions+piazza+sausage&gs_l=img.3...336.4362.0.4456.22.17.0.5.0.0.74.921.16.16.0....0...1ac.1.53.img..7.15.861.-CR82O6-p4g#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=atBS7D8_u829zM%253A%3BSc9nlfRlbja1CM%3Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fanotherfoodcritic.files.wordpress.com%252F2014%252F04%252Fimg_1395.jpg%253Fw%253D440%2526h%253D240%2526crop%253D1%3Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fanotherfoodcritic.wordpress.com%252Fcategory%252Fby-food-type%252Fpizza%252F%3B440%3B240

 

^ ^^ Yep that's it! That was an interesting pizza to eat! I liked it. The sausage takes getting used to though...

That "pizza" looks like a giant hamburger patty.

...and that's a problem, because? ;)

Pro tip: Always request your pie be baked in the "old oven"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/19/peyton-manning-pot-pizza-business_n_5849306.html

Pro tip: Always request your pie be baked in the "old oven"

 

Ditto. This is a must at any Marion's. Costs nothing extra. The default baking style is the conveyor. The "old oven" results in a far better crust.

I don't know what type of oven this "old oven" is, but the various types of antique ovens aren't necessarily unprofitable so much as less profitable than the modern conveyor ovens.  At Domino's 10 years ago (the last time I was in a Domino's kitchen) they had a 6-minute conveyor oven.  Pizzas went through the conveyor oven twice (12 minutes) and hoagies, etc., went through once (6 minutes).  So everything was made at the commissary around that spec.  Yes the pizza doughs were simply frozen discs.

 

So if you want to do better pizza, all you have to do is make your own dough and sauce and cook the pizzas on a "real" oven of some kind.  Except your labor and energy costs double or triple.  It makes it really tough to franchise with that higher start-up and operations cost. 

 

For other insider information, Kentucky Fried Chicken's original recipe is cooked at like 480 degrees for 16:30 in a special pressure-cook oven that costs like $10,000 and each franchise has three or four of them.  The pressure cooker is what traps the moisture into the chicken.  Meanwhile the extra crispy chicken is fried in the exact sort of open fryer chicken wings are fried in at any sort of sports bar.  That's why the extra crispy tastes so dry compared to the original recipe. 

 

 

 

Unless it has changed since I worked there, original recipe was cooked at 425 degrees in those pressure cookers (which are actually pretty awesome). The crispy being dry actually comes more from having twice as much breading. Which was always gross to me. The breading:meat ratio was always way off in my mind.

 

There were several times we wouldn't have room in the open fryers yet were in desperate need of crispy chicken and would cook it in the pressure cookers and it would turn out essentially the same. If you ate there everyday you might have noticed being slightly less crispy but it was, for all intents and purposes, the same.

Marion's "old oven" is a Hobart stone oven set to 550 °F. Each store used to have 5 with one reserved for sandwiches and pasta. In 1991, 2 were removed for double deck conveyor ovens which cook the pizza in about 6 minutes. The main problem with this is you lose a lot of the flour/salt/corn meal mixture on the bottom of their homemade dough when moving the pizza from the wooden board the pizza is prepped on to the metal rack used for the conveyor. The result is the crust crispyness suffers.

 

With that said, it hasn't hurt their business at all.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/19/peyton-manning-pot-pizza-business_n_5849306.html

 

lol ... That's not reeeaaal

Liberty Center announces restaurant tenants

 

The Liberty Center development in Butler County is getting four big-ticket restaurant tenants, developers announced Tuesday.

 

Brio Tuscan Grille, Cheesecake Factory, Kona Grill, and Pies & Pints are the first announced restaurants of dozens planned for the $350 million development.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2014/09/23/liberty-center-announces-restaurant-tenants.html

Does anyone have any info on the bowling-themed bar (I'm hoping a bowling alley) apparently going in next to Local's on 7th Street?  It looks to be in the old Play space.  Spares something?

^

http://www.700wlw.com/articles/local-news-119585/downtown-to-get-bowling-alley-12715321/

I've gotten invites from them about bowling leagues on Tuesdays. 

 

Bowling League

We are a new business to downtown Cincinnati opening towards the end of September. We are a premiere lounge with four state of the art Brunswick bowling lanes. Every Tuesday night we will be holding a fun bowling league for you and your friends! Age range is 21+.

 

This deal equals out to less than $2 a person a game!

 

We have 1 spot left in the league! Hurry and sign up before it's too late!

 

There will be drink specials for bowlers all night and the winning team will receive personalized trophies, money, and 5 tickets to the Bengals vs. Bronco's game! Runner up team will also win money and personalized trophies! Who's ready to have a good time???

Spare Lounge

35 E 7th Street

Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

^That font tho

We are a new business to downtown Cincinnati opening towards the end of September. We are a premiere lounge with four state of the art Brunswick bowling lanes. Every Tuesday night we will be holding a fun bowling league for you and your friends! Age range is 21+.

 

 

Um... FOUR lanes?  Really?

We are a new business to downtown Cincinnati opening towards the end of September. We are a premiere lounge with four state of the art Brunswick bowling lanes. Every Tuesday night we will be holding a fun bowling league for you and your friends! Age range is 21+.

 

 

Um... FOUR lanes?  Really?

 

That was my reaction as well. 4?

It's a small storefront downtown. It's the old Play/Lodge Bar.  Where would they find room?  Yes, four is small, but it's four or 0. So if they can make it work with 4 great.

^It just feels like the wrong space if they only have room for four lanes.  But maybe they're planning for a different concept than a traditional bowling alley or glow bowling.

Generally these types of places make their money from things like bottle service, hourly rates for bowling, etc. They're more of an exclusive bar with bowling alleys as a feature than a normal bowling alley.