Demolition began on Litchfield's Pizza Man Monday morning. A fire in May caused significant damage to the building. Pizza Man's Scott Chandler says in the past couple months, he and his family have been busy with new ideas and planning.

"We got to go up to Chicago (to) look at a pizza oven that we may be purchasing. It holds the temp better (and) the recovery time on it is a lot shorter than what we had. We had some old equipment in there. We went to a couple of equipment places and checked out some new items and talked (about) floor plans, etc. My brother and I came up with a flow, kind of, how we want the new Pizza Man and Ice Cream Man to look... we're just (continuing) to work on planning, tweaking the floor plan, the exterior, the look that we want, color schemes and themes - Hopefully get the feel that the customers were used to but a little more of a modern building."

He says the fireplace was salvaged and they plan to incorporate that into the new floor plan, along with other new ideas and improvements.

"We're all excited as a family - kind of lit a new fire under us. (We're) just excited about the newness of a new place, a new building. We're excited about seeing customers again. So it's really been a blessing overall. I know it was tough to see it go, but we're really excited about the future of Pizza Man."

Chandler says Ice Cream Man and The Panther Room will be included in the new floor plan. He says they hope to start building sometime in November and be ready to open by February or March of next year.
Thomack 8/3/15