The Dewey’s Story
To understand the real story of Dewey’s pizza, one must first learn a little bit about its founder. That’s me. I graduated from Denison University in 1993 with a B.A. in Spanish. As I had always been very into music, and after playing in bands all through college, I decided to extend my commitment to higher learning by attending a one year guitar school in L.A. called G.I.T (the Guitar Institute of Technology). G.I.T. was actually part of a larger school called the Musicians Institute. My mother joked at the time that she had a son at Harvard Business School, a daughter at Yale, and a son at MIT… all of which was true. Who would have thought that I would look like the smart one 15 years later?
After I graduated from guitar school in the fall of 1994, I decided to move to Seattle. Seattle at the time was an incredible music town, and my girlfriend (who is now my wife) had just enrolled in a Masters program for Nutrition at Bastyr University. After a few years of playing gigs and not having much financial success with the band, I got a job at a local pizza delivery place. I was hooked immediately. I really enjoyed the fast paced environment of a busy kitchen. I worked side by side with many artistic people like myself making great pizza, all while having fun and listening to great music. After about a half year in the kitchen, I began realizing that it might be a fun business to get into. I had a bit of an entrepreneurial streak as a kid so I was very excited about the whole process of creating a restaurant. I began thinking about what I would do differently and how much cooler I wanted my place to be. There were so many great neighborhood restaurants in Seattle that I was able to take inspiration from. So it was late spring of 1997, my girlfriend had just graduated, and we decided to move to my hometown, Cincinnati. I was going to open a pizza restaurant and she was going to get a year of clinical experience as a Registered Dietitian under her belt. I signed a lease for a spot in the heart of, the then gentrifying neighborhood, Oakley. It was actually the same space where many of my close friends growing up took Karate classes. I signed the lease in July of 1997 and we opened on April 11, 1998. Sales started off slowly but word of mouth spread quickly. The rest is history.
So my vision for Dewey’s was to create a neighborhood spot with great micro beers on tap, great pizza and salads, and a group of cool, genuine, like minded people making the food and providing authentic hospitality to our patrons. Of course, great music was absolutely mandatory. The Muzak guy really had no chance. I hope you enjoy it. I certainly have had fun creating it.
Andrew E. DeWitt
Founder
