Hogansville closed its back roads for a special event. 

Karvelas Pizza Company set up a 20 foot blow-up screen on its street Saturday night to preview the Atlanta Eats segment featuring the pizza restaurant. 

“We were excited about all of it,” said co-owner Manny Karvelas. “This is a big event for us and we are in a position we didn’t expect to be in, but we are very thankful for it. We are thankful for our customers and our staff.”

Atlanta Eats host Steak Shapiro sat down with owners Manny, Joey and Nick to talk about the story behind Karvelas and its pizza. 

“The whole process was like a blur,” Manny said. “You know you feel like your whole life’s work is finally paying off. After it was all done, it was pretty cool to look back.” 

The family was able to see a preview of the film before the release Saturday night. 

“Our whole entire family came to watch the full release tonight and our regular customers came out too for the event,” Manny said. 

Nick said the business owes its success to the support of family and customers. 

“This is just a big party for us to celebrate everything good that has happened to this business,” Nick said. 

“It would not have been possible without these awesome customers that we have and the support staff we have here. This is family.” 

The City of Hogansville is constantly working on finding ways to put Hogansville on the map, and co-owner Joey said it is helping with the food scene too. 

“We have a lot of stuff going on around here, and there is a lot of people who live around here,” Joey said. 

“I think within a 40-minute drive we have over 350,000 people, and it gives them a reason to come here and eat. Come see our county, come see what we are doing down here. It gives more reasons for people to come here and open up businesses and restaurants.” 

The segment featured how the pizza was made, the fresh ingredients the restaurant uses and even its wings. 

“We featured the Great White Garlic, Flying Buffalo and a good old cheese pizza,” Nick said. 

“There isn’t a bad pizza we have, so we let our pizza man make the decision on what to be featured on the show.”