JUST IN: Popeyes unveils plans, timeline for new restaurant

Site preparation has begun for the Dayton area's newest Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen coming to Kettering, and the restaurant's franchise owner is shooting for a late-summer opening.

Workers with heavy equipment have started preliminary work at the site of a former PNC Bank branch at 4025 Wilmington Pike at East Stroop Road in front of a Meijer store.

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Plans call for demolishing the former bank building, which shut down more than two years ago, and building a 3,200-square-foot restaurant. The new Popeyes is projected to seat about 65.

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“We should be starting construction in the next few weeks,” Pat Gilligan, the franchise owner-operator for Popeyes’ southwest Ohio locations, told this news outlet.

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The restaurant will take about four months to build, and plans call for opening in the first half of September if all goes well, Gilligan said.

The Kettering restaurant will be the fifth Popeyes in the Dayton-Springfield area for the Atlanta-based chain, joining locations in Harrison Twp., Springfield, Englewood and Springboro. The Springboro location opened four months ago, in January.

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Gilligan says more Popeyes locations are coming, although he has not revealed the locations of any additional future restaurants.

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The chain known for its fried chicken and Cajun-style side dishes was once a Dayton-area mainstay. Popeyes had multiple locations in the region in the early 1980s, but those closed, and the region went without a Popeyes for several years. When the Popeyes at 3796 Salem Ave. in Harrison Twp. opened in 2001, fans flocked to the restaurant for several days, causing waits of up to an hour.

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Gilligan purchased the Harrison Twp. and Springfield Popeyes locations in January 2016 and has owned Cincinnati-area Popeyes since 2006.

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Competition is growing more intense in the chicken-restaurant market. Raising Cane’s entered the Dayton-area region with its restaurant on Miamisburg-Centerville Road in Washington Twp. east of the Dayton Mall last year. Chick-fil-A opened two new Dayton-area restaurants — in Kettering and Troy — on the same day in January 2017. Mike’s Nashville Hot opened new restaurants on Far Hills Avenue in Centerville and in Austin Landing in Miami Twp., and Krispy Krunchy Chicken added a Bellbrook location late last year.

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The region also is stocked with KFC, Lee’s Famous Recipe and Church’s chicken restaurants, as well as multiple wing-themed restaurants, including WingStop, which entered the Dayton-area market for the first time about two months ago at Ohio 725 and I-675.

Gilligan purchased the Harrison Twp. and Springfield Popeyes locations in January 2016 and has owned Cincinnati-area Popeyes since 2006.

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Competition is growing more intense in the chicken-restaurant market. Raising Cane’s entered the Dayton-area region with its restaurant on Miamisburg-Centerville Road in Washington Twp. east of the Dayton Mall last year. Chick-fil-A opened two new Dayton-area restaurants — in Kettering and Troy — on the same day in January 2017. Mike’s Nashville Hot opened new restaurants on Far Hills Avenue in Centerville and in Austin Landing in Miami Twp., and Krispy Krunchy Chicken added a Bellbrook location late last year.

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The region also is stocked with KFC, Lee’s Famous Recipe and Church’s chicken restaurants, as well as multiple wing-themed restaurants, including WingStop, which entered the Dayton-area market for the first time about two months ago at Ohio 725 and I-675.

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