“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.

“Here he is.” Kimble Crane points to a large grey truck squeezing into a parking space. Out jumps his brother, Michael Crane, with drumsticks in hand, ready to play. They are part of Crane Co, a rock band from Winder. Zion Stovall, the third member of the trio, appears behind me. He’s slender, with blonde, curly hair blasting out from under his Georgia cap. He sways back and forth like a tall blade of grass in the wind as he lights a cigarette. “They found me on the side of t