By Desiree D’lorio and Remi Schott
A new restaurant franchise offering signature calzones and late-night delivery opened its first Long Island location Sept. 13 on Route 25A in Stony Brook, pitting it against new neighbors Domino’s Pizza and Station Pizza & Brew.
DP Dough’s website touts it as the “Original Calzone Company and The Pizza Franchise Alternative!” The Stony Brook location is the 27th to open nationwide. A quarter of a mile from popular Stony Brook bar and restaurant “The Bench,” DP Dough targets 18- to 25-year-olds and offers delivery until 2:00am.
Owner and Long Island native, Michael Frey, says that in order to get a new location for the franchise approved, it has to first meet three specific criteria. “One is that the location has to be within a half-mile of campus,” Frey said. “They need to have at least 20,000 full-time students, and 10,000 of those have to live on campus.”
Stony Brook University meets all three – 26,000 students attend the public university, and the 53 on-campus resident halls are home to approximately 10,200 students.
Two years ago, Frey purchased the commercial property with the hopes of bringing his calzone venture to life.
“We had several different delays with the local town and jurisdictions, just a few changes they wanted made with the landscaping and then some service equipment and then the parking lot, but we eventually got it resolved and everything’s going good so far,” Frey said.
D.P. Dough’s new location is less than a mile from pizza delivery chain Domino’s and pizzeria Station Pizza.
“It’s only calzones – they’re not selling pizza,” Tom Marino, Station Pizza manager, said. “If they were, that might be a different story. We have Domino’s right next door, too,” Marino said, noting that Station Pizza has a loyal customer base built over the past 20 years.
“It hasn’t affected us yet,” Torkan Ozen, Domino’s shift manager said. “We have coupons and specials. We’re still doing good.” Domino’s stops delivering at 1:00am.
Local Chamber of Commerce members did not return requests for comment.
Frey says the diverse menu, late-night delivery, and online ordering options will attract college students.
“I definitely think that it’s been so successful because it’s so close to campus, it’s so much more affordable than most other things, and the biggest reason is because it’s opened late,” Alessia Russo, a Stony Brook University student said. “When you’re up late and you forget about dinner, ordering food isn’t an option anymore, but I’m excited because we have this now. Plus, after the Bench, it’s the perfect place to go.”
D.P. Dough’s menu offers customizable prepared-to-order calzones. The $8 price tag is similar to Station’s. There’s no calzones on the Domino’s menu.
“Adding Stony Brook University to D.P. Dough’s portfolio includes them with other high profile universities such as Penn State, Ohio State, NC State, UConn,” Frey said. “That’s part of why I wanted to bring D.P. Dough to Stony Brook.”