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Nick and Al Karvelas said they’re excited to bring Grizzly Pizza & Wings to Atmore soon.

Grizzly Pizza & Wings will be located in the former Café 251 building on West Church Street. This will be the first unit of Grizzly Pizza.

“We’re going to be doing pizza, wings, hand-breaded tenders, in house wing sauces,” Nick said.

“And salads,” Al added. “That’s pretty much our corps offering.”

Additionally, the new restaurant, which is slated to open by the end of the summer, will have craft beer, wine and regular selections.

Running restaurants and owning pizzerias runs in the Karvela family.

“It started when we were kids,” Nick said. “Our grandfather (Jim), he had a takeout pizza place in Georgia. We grew up knowing and see that, and being around the restaurant vibe. He passed and our uncle (Joey) decided to carry it on, and revamped it and made it full service.

“That’s where Al and I learned,” he added. “We were a part of that business for a long time. Our dad (Manny) and our sister; his wife, we did that for a while. That’s called Karvelas Pizza Co.”

Karvelas Pizza Co. has four locations in Georgia.

Both said that they learned a lot about leadership and operations from their father.

“He’s the best leader we know,” Al said. “He’s been in leadership logistics basically our entire life, his entire adult life. He’s had ample years of experience in leadership. We kind of just followed along with him. We drank through the fire hose. He was there to guide us all the time.”

Al said their father worked his way up to senior manager at FedEx, and what they learned about operations will transfer down to how Grizzly will be run.

Nick and Al’s wives, Alexis and Abbie, respectively, have been quite supportive.

“They’re playing a major role in everything,” Nick said. “We uprooted our lives in Georgia and came to this town in Atmore, a place we love. We feel like Atmore could be a good stop to have a good family environment restaurant, where people in Atmore can come and relax, drink a beer and eat some wings and pizza.”

Al said they chose Atmore because they already have family here.

“The city is primed and it’s a great opportunity down here,” he said. “It’s a great city. There’s a lot of potential.”

When asked about the name of the restaurant, Nick said it goes along with feeding the bear.

“Our food tastes so good, you eat it like a grizzly bear,” Nick said. “When you eat those wings, it’s like a grizzly bear just finding meat.”

Both said they’re excited to bring Grizzly Pizza & Wings to Atmore.

“We think it’s going to be awesome down here,” Al said. “We have nothing but good things to say about the town of Atmore. We’ve been very welcomed by everybody. They’ve been helpful and interested. We’re super excited.”