Owner Jereme Collins, Ronettis Pizza London, Ohio

Ronettis Pizza

London, Ohio

Concept:

We started out as a carryout/delivery concept. In 1996, the owners at the time decided to move into a larger building downtown, and expand to offer dine-in services. Today, even through this pandemic, we are a full-service restaurant. We have a fairly large menu, with options from appetizers, salads, subs, burgers, pasta, and of course, pizza.

Pizza Style:

We offer a single style of crust, thin crust. Many describe it as a cracker crust. We make our dough in-house, each day, using the same exact recipe that has been used for over
50 years!

In the business for more than 50 years, how has Ronettis been able to stay relevant in a changing industry?

I feel our success started long before I became the owner of the restaurant. The founders of Ronettis provided a great product, with service to match, when they first began in 1969. Ronettis became a staple in the pizza (and restaurant) market in London from the very beginning. I believe that has given us a huge advantage today, to take a little more risk on changes we may want to make, big or small. Over the last 10 years that I have owned the restaurant, we have continually had to take risks. We have made changes to the menu, our service hours, online ordering options, and our delivery range. In 2020, with COVID coming upon us, it required us to make changes I never believed would be possible for us (or maybe I just wasn’t willing to take the risk with some things). From time to time we do promotions that get people even more excited to come here. For example, on our 50th anniversary, we had 15″ pizzas for $2.75, which was the price they were in 1969. That promotion wasn’t a money maker, but we gained new customers, did something to show our appreciation for the community, and had a lot of fun while doing it!

How are you able to maintain such a strong team of employees?

I am so fortunate that so many of our employees are really self-motivated to get the job done. Those are the best employees to have, and sometimes the hardest to find. Those are the employees I have to keep around. And the longer they work here, the better they become. So many of our staff are already great friends with one another, or have developed a great friendship from working here. When that happens, it makes it much more enjoyable for them to come to work with their friends. Finding great employees is my greatest struggle, but they’re also my greatest asset!

I saw a great Instagram post from you addressing rumors. You encountered rumors during 2020 that could have been damaging to your business. How were you able to handle the hearsay?

We had been hearing rumors of our closing, as well as other things related to that for quite some time. I wasn’t offended or upset by any of them, because our sales were indicating that our community was continuing to support us. But one particular day I had heard another rumor that our business was closing, so I decided to address these on social media. I tried to keep it light hearted and funny, and quite frankly, use it as a promotion for us. The post went over very well, as we received a lot of positive comments and appreciation for our staff and restaurant.