Eric Soller

For a couple that met in culinary school, and turned an old 6000 square feet Standard Auto Parts store in an undesirable part of town, into the Miami Valley’s #1 Pizza Place (according to yelp reviews), you’d expect something special to celebrate the success of their first year of business.

Oakwood’s Eric & Stephanie Soller have a big celebration planned for Old Scratch Pizza’s first birthday on Wed, Oct 18th.  “We have been really overwhelmed by how generous our customers and the City of Dayton have been over the last year,” Soller said.  “We really wanted to say thank you.  And what better way to say thank you than free pizza.”

Join their text club by texting OSP to 797979 and you can  be eating FREE PIZZA at their Oct 18th First Anniversary celebration, which will run all day long starting at 11am.  Late Tuesday night, member of the text club will get a coupon that will be valid for the Wednesday anniversary party!

Old Scratch Pizza will also have the Trotwood trailer on hand with $3 Warped Wing beers, drink specials, door prizes and much more. According to Eric, “It’s probably going to get pretty  crazy around here on Wednesday.”

OSP is located at 812 S Patterson Blvd and is open six days a week, closed on Monday.

Old Scratch Pizza By the Numbers

1  – Years in Existence

12 –  Cones For A Cause Charity Partners

20  –  Taps of craft beers

40  –  Number of jobs created

230  – The number of seats in OSP

800  –  the temperature of the pizza ovens

6000 – Whole Roasted Cauliflower Heads served

17,000 –  dollars donated to local non-profits

Through the Cones for a Cause program, each month they’ve partnered with a local charity and all revenue from their soft -serve ice cream are donated to that organization.  Between the donations and 10% of sales from a one night takeover event, OSP has donated $17,000 to organizations including, Secret Smiles of Dayton, Clothes That Work, House of Bread, Miami Valley Pit Crew, Girls on the Run, Bike Miami Valley, Brigid’s Path, Equitas Health, Oak Tree Corner, Helping Hands of Dayton and Crayons to Classrooms.  If you’ve got a charity that would like to partner, sign up on the OSP website.

OSP also features some of the best local, wood-roasted vegetables in town. Pictured here brussels sprouts, broccolini, corn on the cob and sugar snap peas pictured below are just some of the specials you can expect to rotate when in season.

And of course the highlight of any trip to Old Scratch Pizza are the creative pizza’s you can get there.
Of course you can get a pepperoni and cheese pizza, or you can get adventurous  and try one of these
pictured below:

Row 1 left: House-made lamb sausage, finished with feta, cherry tomatoes, red onions, and tzatziki sauce.
Row 1 right: Duck Salami, Mushrooms, Pistachio Pesto, Fresh Mozzarella and Sour Ale Reduction.

Row 1 left: Kale, house-made hot Italian sausage, lots of Pecorino Romano cheese, and sesame-seed crust.

Row 2 right: Romesco Base, Avocado Mousse, Arugula, Pickled Red Onion, Bacon and a Balsamic Reduction

*these specialty pizza are run as specials, not on the regular menu, be sure and check for features on your visit.  And yes, they do have gluten free pizza’s available.

We’ve all been watching the transformation of what was once an old ugly paint store on Patterson across from Grismer Tire become transformed into Old Scratch Pizza.

Stephanie Soller shared that her husband Eric drove by the building every day for years from his job at Hobart on his way home to their home in Oakwood and about a year ago they decided that it would be the home of their beer and pizza joint.  The couple, who meet in culinary school had always dreamed of opening a restaurant together.

The 6000 sq foot restaurant has a casual feel, where you’ll order at the counter, then head into the dining room, which seats about 150 at communal tables or at  one of the 20 seats at the bar.   There’s even a private room that will seat about 30.   Weather permitting the patio adds another 40 seats.

The pizza they’ll be serving is Neopolitan-style pizza – a very thin crispy crust, cooked quickly in two wood-fired pizza ovens that at 800-1000 degrees will cook a pizza in just a couple of minutes. Soller says getting used to the ovens has been a big learning experience for him and the staff. A Chicago pizza expert Gianni Gallucci of Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani (aka the Pizza Police) was brought in to assist in training them all on the style of pizza they will be producing.

Stephanie Soller

MostMetro.com was lucky enough to get an invite to one of the practice dining sessions, where we were greeted with great hospitality by Stephanie, who seemed very cool and collected, a great sign for management of the new eatery.  She gave us a quick overview of the menu and it was hard to decide where to begin.  Vegetarian {V}, Vegan{VG} and Gluten Free{GF} items were clearly marked, a welcome detail for many. The pizza’s are about 11 inches around- a big meal for one or perfect to share. We tried the meatballs- and they were quite tasty- can’t wait to go back for a meatball sandwich.

The Pizza Menu is divided into REDS:

Margherita {V}  hand-crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, romano, olive oil  $10

Marinara {VG}  hand-crushed tomatoes, oregano, garlic, olive oil  $8.5

Angry Beekeeper hand-crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, spicy soppressata, hot honey, olive oil $12

We tried the Dayton on our first visit!

Elliot {V}  hand-crushed tomatoes, dry-aged mozzarella  $8.50

Brooklyn  hand-crushed tomatoes, house-made sausage, sliced meatball, fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil $13

Mr. Scratch hand-crushed tomatoes, house-made sausage, caramelized onions, Calabrian chilis, fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil  $12.50

Dayton  hand-crushed tomatoes, cupped pepperoni, dry-aged mozzarella (square cut)  $11

 

WHITES:

Shroom {V}  olive oil, wood-roasted forest mushrooms, fresh mozzarella, roasted

Roasted Cauliflower to share!

garlic, thyme, white truffle oil  $12.50

Fried Bologna  olive oil, mortadella, roasted garlic, taleggio, thyme, pistachios  $12

Blanco {V} romano, fresh mozzarella, ricotta, thyme $11.5

Sophie Mae  applewood-smoked bacon, red onion jam, fresh mozzarella, romano  $11Broco Rancho {V} roasted broccolini, taleggio, garlic, chili flake, ranch dressing $11.5

Prosciutto Arugula  olive oil, fresh mozzarella, lemon-dressed arugula, romano, proscuitto $13

There’s also a build your own option, salads, sharable appetizers like the whole roasted cauliflower, meatballs, cold cuts and buratta & proscuitto.  Eric also shared that they’ll add a brunch pizza down the road.