pizza, pizza

After Bryan Ketelhut and Tom Moran moved to Dallas from the suburbs of Detroit, they lived in a hotel room for about a month. But the employees of their Little Caesar’s franchise, which opened on Falls Drive in June 2008, took good care of them. “People were always bringing us food,” Moran says. “They would bring us dinner every night.” The partners say they try to keep a family atmosphere at their business, which has 23 employees, all of whom live in the surrounding neighborhood. Employee turnover has been remarkably low, especially for a fast-food franchise. Almost everyone who works there started with the store the day it opened, Ketelhut says. “Everyone is very tight-knit,” he says. Ketelhut and Moran chose Oak Cliff to open their first franchise because they wanted mild winters, and demographic data showed a high concentration of Hispanic families, who are a good target for their star product, the $5 Hot-and-Ready pizza deal. They chose the location near Falls and Westmoreland Road because it is “nestled in the neighborhood,” Ketelhut says. They took a risk on the neighborhood and a 2,700-square-foot space that is nearly twice the size of a typical Little Caesar’s franchise. The store has been robbed once, as part of a string of 20 or so robberies in the area, but their investment in Oak Cliff so far has paid off. Their franchise is the highest-grossing Little Caesar’s store in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and they’ve been quick to give back to the community. They brought the “Love Truck,” a huge catering bus that Detroitbased Little Caesar’s uses to relieve natural disasters, to Galveston after Hurricane Ike. After students at Celestino Mauricio Soto Jr. Elementary School finished the TAKS test, they brought the Love Truck to them for a pizza party. “That was all out of our own pockets,” Moran says. Even though they’re “just two white guys from Michigan,” Ketelhut and Moran say they’ve found a home in Oak Cliff. “People see that we’re outsiders, but they still accept us,” Ketelhut says.

—Rachel Stone

?Our neighborhood association would like to have SIGn TOPPERS installed on our street poles as a way to show neighborhood pride. How do we do this?

Sign toppers are becoming more common in Dallas these days, but keep in mind two major factors: cost and approval. Because sign toppers aren’t associated with public safety, the city isn’t required to maintain this type of signage, nor does it have enough funds for installation or maintenance. The city does, however, allow sign topper projects to be privately funded.

Here’s how it works:

1.

If a neighborhood association decides it wants to foot the bill for sign toppers, it first needs approval from the city’s public works and transportation department. (This is required to ensure that signs do not interfere with public safety or federal sign standards.)

2. The request for sign toppers must include a design. Dimensions can be no bigger than 24 by 9 inches.

3. neighbors must identify where to place the sign toppers. They can be installed only at locations with existing street name signs. neighbors also must indicate sign direction — the streets with which the sign toppers will be parallel and should determine the street pole type by measuring the circumference of each pole at the point the sign will be attached.

4. If the city approves the plan, the neighborhood association will bear the cost of the entire sign fabrication and installation. Sign manufacturers typically charge about $30 for each double-sided sign. Each set of brackets and hardware usually costs another $30. Plus, the association must pay the city to install the sign toppers because only city staff is authorized to work on public streets (the charge is roughly $20 per pole). Installation usually is complete within four to six weeks.

5. One last thing: The city can remove your sign toppers at any time without replacement if they become unsightly.

For information about sign topper projects, contact Alex Wong at 214.670.4654. aUDRa GloVeR