Deli coming to downtown Dayton

Flyboys to open restaurant on ground floor of CareSource building.

Flyboys Deli has signed a lease to open a new restaurant on the ground floor of a CareSource building at 219 N. Patterson Blvd., CareSource officials and the restaurant’s owners announced Monday in a joint release.

The new deli will be located next to the Winans Chocolates & Coffee shop that opened Jan. 13 at 221 N. Patterson Blvd. Plans call for construction to be completed over the next few months in the ground-floor retail spaces that the building’s owner is calling CareSource Ballpark Village.

“We could have added more office space in that area, but we wanted to do something more,” David Clapper, director of facilities management at CareSource, said in a release. “We decided to add amenities that improve the experience of the people who live, work and play in the downtown area including our employees.”

About 800 CareSource employees work in the building, a CareSource spokesman said.

The husband-and-wife owners of Flyboys Deli, Steve Crandall and Eunice Kim, operate a deli on Far Hills Avenue in Oakwood, which will continue to operate. The business owners shut down what had been their second location at the Mall at Fairfield Commons two months ago.

Crandall said the new location’s proximity to Day Air Ballpark, the Great Miami River, local offices and several new apartment and condos project makes the location “just perfect for us.”

Crandall said Flyboys’ downtown deli will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner six days a week, closed on Sundays. There will be a patio, a main restaurant area in front, three meeting rooms with audio and visual capabilities and a full-service bar, Crandall said in the release. The menu will include sandwiches and menu items from the Oakwood deli, but will also include Kim’s take on Korean cuisine, the owners said.

In a follow-up interview Monday, Crandall told this news outlet that he was approached in July 2019 by CareSource officials about opening a restaurant in the North Patterson Boulevard space.

No projected timetable is available, but Crandall said he is hoping to take advantage of the Dayton Dragons baseball season as much as possible.

Crandall and Kim opened the Oakwood Flyboys Deli in January 2013 as a New York-style deli, with a design and decor that celebrate Dayton’s aviation heritage.

Crandall is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. He and his wife moved to the Dayton area from Maryland in 2010.