6 delicious restaurant chains that were born in the Miami Valley

Here is a look at six restaurant chains that got their start locally:

Submarine House

The first Submarine House was opened in 1973 on Brown Street by Doug Kidd.

Gary Danner, a fan of cheese steak subs, an east coast-style sandwich, was a frequent diner and opened the first franchise in 1978 on North Main Street.

Danner eventually bought the franchise from Kidd and expanded in the Dayton area along with his sons.

Today, the family business has locations throughout the Dayton region and in Columbus.

Fricker’s

Two brothers with an entrepreneurial spirit, Ray and Robert Frick, founded Fricker’s in the Dayton area in 1985.

“Who would have ever thought you could build an entire business around chicken wings?” the Fricker’s website notes.

Today there are more than two dozen locations in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.

Hot Head Burritos

The first Hot Head Burritos store opened in Kettering in March 2007.

The “quick serve Mexican” restaurant was co-founded by Cynthia Wiley and Raymond Wiley.

The restaurants, which feature burritos, quesadillas and tacos on their menus, can be found in nine states spanning from Connecticut to Nevada.

Marion’s Piazza

Marion Glass used his life savings to open his first pizza restaurant on Patterson Road in Dayton on Aug. 19, 1965.

The space, designed to look like an outdoor Italian courtyard – a piazza – was brought inside and could seat more than 200.

Glass died in 2006, but today the nine locations of the family-owned business are run by his son, Roger Glass.

The Red Barn

The Red Barn restaurant was founded in Springfield in 1961 by Don Six, Jim Kirst and Martin Levine.

Known for the “Big Barney” and the “Barnbuster” burgers, the chain spread across the country to 22 states and to Canada and Australia.

The chain was sold in the late 1970s and eventually closed.

Cassano’s Pizza King

“Vic” Cassano, Sr., and his mother-in-law Caroline “Mom” Dinisi, opened their first shop June 4, 1953 in a 20-by-15 foot room in the back of a Kettering grocery store. They sold 400 square-cut, thin-crust pizzas the first day.

Cassano’s Pizza King was one of the first in the nation to franchise its stores in 1955. The company grew to 125 stores and by the 1970s it ranked in the top four pizza chains in the country.

Today, Dayton’s oldest pizza chain is run by the third generation of the family.