I’m nervous to say this but I’ll do it anyhow: we’re on schedule. Of course now that I’ve published this post I’m sure I’ve jinxed us too. Still, at this point we are on target with the drywall (aka sheet rock, hence the “witty” title) up and finished. I guess it’s easier to make progress when you aren’t held up with permit delays

We should have the floors, ceilings, ovens and countertops in by the end of the month. Following that phase, and if we can keep on schedule, is about 2-3 weeks worth of equipment install, final touches and employee training. We’re more confident that we’ll be slinging ‘zones before July ends. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Here are some recent store pics:

~Mike, Scott, Jacquie & Jason
DP Dough Philly

Welcome to DP Dough Philadelphia. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed.

The four of us DP Dough Philly founders (phounders?) consider ourselves foodies, not just entrepreneurs. With that said, one of our favorite 40th Street neighbors is James Beard Award winner Jose Garces. Here’s a quick write up about his Philly restaurants from one of my favorite newsletters.

http://tastingtable.com/entry_detail/everywhere/301/Jose_Garces_brings_an_atlass_worth_of_cuisines_to_Philadelphia.htm

Distrito is our neighbor and we’ll attest that food is quite delicious. Being a Kentucky native, I’m particularly excited about his new venture — Village Whiskey

As for our store, we’ll have more progress updates very soon.

~Jason

If you’ve walked by the store lately you’ve probably wondered, “Man, are these guys doing ANYTHING?” I’m sure there are even more exasperated thoughts coming from those who are in the know about the D.P. Dough greatness.

Well, I promise you, the four of us have been quite busy.

As long time followers of our updates know, we solve one dilemma and encounter another one. Most of our holdups have come from having to rezone the store (turning a bodega into a food service eatery is quite an undertaking as we’ve discovered) and also bring it up to code. Our most recent delay was no exception. Due to lack of trash accessibility, we actually had to build our own alley out back. Shortly after getting city approval to move our neighbors fences, we did just that and then laid some concrete for the alley.

Along with completing the trash alley, we have some other great news. I’m sure you can put 2 and 2 together and surmise that these unexpected delays and extras have led to a few, to say the least, budget overages. Fortunately, we were informed of a wonderful program by The Merchants Fund. In a nutshell, they grant funds to a select number of Philly businesses who are need of some financial assistance. More specifically, it is for business that will create jobs and give back to the community that sustains them. That’s us — we can’t wait to start adding value to the 40th Street corridor — and we can’t thank them enough for a much needed and quite generous grant of up to $42,000. Oh, and did we mention we got a Happy Gilmore sized check? Friggin awesome.

The next post should include some interior shots to prove there will actually be a restaurant behind those doors.

~Mike, Scott, Jacquie & Jason
DP Dough Philly

If you happen to walk by the store for whatever reason you’ll notice S&M is gone. Of course it has been gone for a while, but now it’s a bit more official. There isn’t much else to say so here are the pics:

Painting:

Slideshow

Signage:

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Getting there!

~DP Dough Philly
Mike, Scott, Jacquie, and Jason

Just another quick update to keep everyone in the loop! As you can see, the big ugly metal grates have been removed from the front windows and doors. We’re still working on the interior, but things are really moving along now! More updates to follow…

Slideshow

~Mike, Scott, Jacquie and Jason
The DP Dough Philly Team

And they will eventually open for you As you can see from the pics, we now have windows and doors. As you can also see, we still don’t have drywall up yet; that isn’t a big deal though. We’ll start sealing up the walls soon and things should move quickly at that point from an appliance/decoration standpoint.

The latest hurdle we jumped came in the form of handicap access. We were recently notified that our doorstep was a tad too high so we needed to add a ramp to the front. We thought that we would be grandfathered in (exempt) since we were moving into an existing structure, but the powers-that-be are revitalizing the area so they asked us to bring the store up to current standards. Of course that would have been easy if basement access wasn’t flanking the entrance on both sides. After Mike stayed up all night panicking, he met with our architect and discussed possibilities ranging from a lift to a reduction of interior floor space. Fortunately we settled on the easier solution: a removable ramp.

I hope that when you guys see the ramp out front, you can appreciate the story behind it

Slideshow

~Mike, Scott, Jacquie and Jason
The DP Dough Philly Team

Our last post said that we were going to be open on Feb 2nd and since that is a week from Monday I thought it would be good to update everyone. To start off, we probably won’t be open by Feb 2 but we will most likely be open in Feb.

I won’t go into specifics, but the hold up was a health code review. Fortunately we received the approval on our plans last week so the inspection will be soon to follow. Once the inspection happens it’s a matter of a week or two to finish up. All of our equipment is on standby, along with the tradespeople waiting to seal the walls and decorate the store.

There you have it Though we were delayed, we are extremely excited because the opening is near. I’ll post another update once the physical walk through is done and at that point we should have a much more concrete idea of opening. Thanks for bearing with us; I promise it’ll be worth the wait.

~The DP Dough Philly Team

Now that the major hurdles have been cleared (knock on wood), we’ve decided to set our “soft” opening date…

February 2, 2009

We intend on doing a Grand Opening a few weeks later after we get settled in, but ideally we will start selling our calzones that Monday. It goes without saying that until then we’ll continue to update the blog with new developments (finalized menu, phone number, etc).

See you all soon!

~Mike, Scott, Jacquie and Jason
The DP Dough Philly Team

To begin, we got our first recognition by the local print community a few weeks ago. Drew Lazor, writer for City Paper’s Meal Ticket section, stumbled upon our details and gave a quick intro to his readers.

Here’s the article: DP Dough Poised to Calzone-ify West Philly

We’re excited that locals are welcoming us to your neighborhood! 

As for the store progress, we’ve gotten our permits in order and are still moving along. Here are some pics of DP Dough Philly:

Slideshow

As always, please shoot us an email if you have questions, comments or suggestions. If you’re looking to join our team, you can click here for the online quick app.

Thanks!
~Mike, Scott, Jacquie and Jason
The DP Dough Philly Team

Hello!

We know that many of you are anxiously waiting for the DP Dough Philly store to open so you can get the zones you’ve been craving! Others may be anticipating your first taste if you’re aware of DP Dough’s reputation. If that’s the case, trust us when we say that you won’t be disappointed when the time comes.

We’re sure this goes without saying, but we can assure you that we can’t wait to see you either. Maybe we’ll see you at the store picking up lunch, or maybe it’ll be when we drop off countless of zones to you at 2am. Regardless of the time or place, we’re sure that you’ll be satisfied with our service and our zones. We’ll be happy to deliver to your dorm during those late night study sessions, apartment for when you just don’t want to cook, or house party when nothing else will please but a fresh hot zone.

Unfortunately, just because we can’t wait doesn’t mean we don’t have to. If you visit our site with any frequency you’ll notice that our opening date has been moved from “Summer 2008″ to “Winter 2008.” We have been working tirelessly for the past year and half to get the store open for you but things are taking longer than we anticipated. To be honest, this is our team’s first store so we’re learning as we go along. In fact, if you’re curious about what it takes, we’d be glad to tell you all about the process.

Fortunately, we’ve pretty much figured it out (at least for now…) and finally things are moving along quickly. We are currently in the middle of construction and working as quickly as possible to get everything ready to open. In fact, we placed the order for our kitchen equipment this week! We are now accepting applications for all positions so if you’re interested in working with our team, visit us here and fill out the form.

We don’t have a firm opening date yet but anticipate it to be late December or early January, just in time for all of you college students returning from winter break!

As always, we look forward to getting feedback from you and hearing any suggestions you may have for us! You can contact us at d.p.doughphilly@dpdoughphilly.com.

~Mike, Scott, Jacquie and Jason
The DP Dough Philly Team