Driving Our Economy Forward: Phil’s Primetime Pizza

CHICKAMAUGA, GA. WDEF- Who doesn’t love a good slice of pizza?  Phil’s Primetime Pizza has been serving up some serious dough for 35 years.  Wednesday, we learned more about how the business continues to drive our economy forward.   The restaurant opened in Chickamauga, Georgia in 1989.

Owner Kevin Martin says, “If you look at the menu, all the specialty pizzas are named after mom and dad and their immediate children and grandchildren. It started out in 1989 as prime time Video. In 1995, it became primetime video on pizza. Video died its horrible death. It became primetime pizza and video. And then dad retired in 2018, and it became Phil’s prime time pizza because I just needed to keep his name. It’s his dough.”

Martin also said, “We make everything we can with just pure love. It’s a rare day for somebody to go, oh, that was good. That was okay. It, like, words like fantastic and amazing have become part of the lexicon. I maybe get offended when I hear somebody. It’s fine. They’ve told me it’s better than that. So, we make our dough every day. We do a double fermentation. So that dough is gonna sit here tonight, and then we’ll cut it tomorrow, and then we’ll use it the next day. You can tell when that’s done, whether it’s here or any other pizza place. You can tell the dough just is better quality. All the guys you’ve seen in here really care about food, and that’s important.”

Martin says, “Small as this community is, the people of Chickamauga have supported us. We wouldn’t be here. I mean, so many people went out of business in 2020 if it were not for this community’s, you know, support coming in, making sure that we were still selling pizzas through that time, we wouldn’t be here.  This is our 35th year. So that we’re still here, I feel, is a big testimony to our customers that have always supported us. It doesn’t hurt that we make pretty good food. Anybody can come by any time. Smells are always free. Smells are always free.”