Pizza Garden, located in downtown Atlantic, has officially closed and shut its doors to customers. Due to costs and the number of customers, profit has slowly declined. As a result, Preston Nelsen, the owner of Pizza Garden, has decided to cut his losses and close his business after just 8 months in business.
Jaxon Hepler, a former Pizza Garden employee and Nelsen’s grandson, describes his workday as “pretty chill,” stating that it wasn’t a high-stress environment. Nelsen used a pickup-only option for his restaurant, which opened during the hours of 4-8 PM, every day of the week. According to Hepler, these four hours would get busy because it was the only time of day that they were open. He would work weekdays after practices when the staff was low or they needed extra hands. Hepler’s typical workday was to be “in the back making the pizza” or “taking phone calls and doing register.” Pizza Garden was run by Hepler and a couple of employees, all in high school. Hepler said, “So there’s a little responsibility that you take pride in and run the business.” During his time working, Hepler learned multiple life lessons, like how to make a pizza and a further insight into what he plans to do in life.
Pizza Garden began to lose money when a lack of customers arose. Described as slow instead of a specific turning point, some may argue that Pizza Garden was doomed to fail all along. Hepler states, “When the business slows down and we start to not make a profit, that would usually push you to make that decision.”
Efforts to save the business were made as Nelsen kept his restaurant open as long as possible. Hepler says that there is only so much a customer can do to help, but when they stop coming in, Nelsen can only do so much. Regular buyers may have felt the loss of their pizza place closing, and might think about the future of this business. Hepler quotes, “I don’t know a lot, but I know he had a lot of pride in that business. So if there’s anything he can do to get it up.”
Competition in Atlantic had always been tough in the pizza business. An earlier pizza place failure was Pizza Hut because they didn’t have enough customers in relation to Pizza Garden. Scott Simonton, a Sophomore at Atlantic High School, said that he has never ordered from Pizza Garden. Simonton said, “Casey’s has good pizza, and I prefer to go there. They never fail to make pizza taste good.” Callan Kluever, another Sophomore, claims that he was “disappointed” but understood the closure because Pizza Garden was “kinda slow.” Kluever said that other places like Pizza Ranch and Casey’s compare, but “would prefer Pizza Garden.” He finishes by stating that it’s a “shame they closed.”
