Little York Tavernmoving ahead onKettering plans
Little York Tavern& Pizza, the popular pub and music destination for nearly four decades in Vandalia, is sticking with its plan to add a new location on East Dorothy Lane in Kettering, Little York owner Matt Hentrick confirmedThursday, Sept. 3.
Hentrick had disclosed his intention to open a restaurant at 1122 E. Dorothy Lane in early March, just before the full force of the coronavirus pandemicwas felt in the form of a forced shutdownof all dine-in service at bars and restaurants. The Kettering space most recently housed an Arepas & Co Colombian Comfort Food restaurant.
“Wehavebeenworkingon openingKetteringlocationfor several months,” Hentrick told this news outlet Thursday. “As of this moment, we do not have an opening date set, butwehopetoverysoon, as we still have a few loose ends to tie up.”
Hentrick said in early Marchthathehad been looking to expand LittleYorkTavern& PIzza’s footprint in the Dayton area for quite some time. Kettering, he said, “is a good area with a strong residential base.”
Plans call for the second location to focus more on food; carryout and delivery will be an important part of the business in Kettering, although it will also offer a dine-in option and drinks, Hentrick said in the spring.
“We’ve been in the pizza business for 32 years, and we’re still going strong,” he said.
Little York Tavern & Pizza has operated other franchise sitesinthepast, includingone in Franklin in the late 1990s.
The Kettering space, set back from the road and tucked in behind another business, had earned a reputation as a graveyard of restaurants of sorts in the early 2000s, when a series of nearly a half-dozen restaurants failed to flourish there. But Arepas servedcustomers fromthat building for nearly sixyears, considerablylonger than its predecessors, before shutting its doors in February 2020 due in part to family medical issues.