Wednesday
Morning
Quarterbacking

“You have to be more than twenty-five feet away from the polling place.”

In Italian, Arditi means “daring and bold”—and thirty-eight-year-old Travis Eaves, the owner of Arditi Pizzeria, is exactly that. After opening his restaurant on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, he had to fight to stay afloat, which meant shuttering his dream to open a second location in the Athens area at the time. Despite those early hurdles, he has done far more than just survive over the last eight years, building a loyal customer base of regular Lawrenceville-area diner

The morning fog has burned off quickly, and the sun is shining bright in Holly Springs. I can see Charley Loeb approaching from across the lot, his tall, six-foot-four frame casting a long shadow across the gravel. He’s slender but muscular, and probably doesn’t look much different than he did when he played quarterback for the Syracuse Tigers from 2011 to 2014.