Homemade garlic knots, Sicilian-style pizza and a few specialty pastas are coming to downtown Lula.

Napoli’s Pizza, with locations in Flowery Branch and Oakwood, is opening a location in the old Pizza Depot on Athens Street in downtown Lula.

Giuseppe Scotto, manager of Napoli’s Pizza, said while plans for the new restaurant are underway with hopes to open before summer, there is not an official opening date set.

“It’s official, but because it is an old building, they’re redoing everything,” Scotto said. “It will take a little while.”

The new location will have a slightly smaller menu, but the same food.

“Because it’s a smaller place, and the area is a little smaller than Flowery Branch or Oakwood, I cannot put everything like I can here. But you don’t know, you can always add to it. Otherwise, it’s going to be the same.”

Napoli’s is Italian and family owned and operated, with a casual atmosphere. Scotto said the owners and managers are planning renovations to the space to create an environment similar to the other two locations.

“We’re putting tiles everywhere,” he said. “It’s got the plastic tile right now, and they’re not worth it. They’re slippery and they don’t look good. So they have to redo that, and it takes a long time to do all that anyway.”

The new location will have the floor-to-ceiling murals found in the Flowery Branch and Oakwood restaurants. The murals depict scenes of gondolas in Venice, the Colosseum in Rome and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.

“The lady who does the murals is out of the country right now,” Scotto said. “So whenever she’ll be back, it takes at least two or three weeks to do murals like we have in both locations. She takes a long time to do it.”

And Scotto said a great deal of work has to be done in the meantime.

“Every time you tear something down, something comes up,” he said. “Yesterday, it’s the plumbing. You want to replace everything, because it’s better to do it all now than later.”