SAN ANTONIO – It's Carlo Lujan's job to keep things running smoothly at Big Lou's Pizza, but what many customers may not know about Lujan is that he is also an artist, a pizza artist.
"Seeing the smiles on their faces, like, 'How the heck did you do this?' A lot of people freak out," Lujan said. "They think it's a machine that does this."
Lujan has been making specialty pizzas with unique artwork for the last four years.
Lately, he's been concentrating on a cut-out cheese pizza style, which he said is a five-step process.
Lujan said it all starts with the design on parchment paper, and depending on the detail of the design, the pizza could take him hours to complete.
"It takes a lot of patience," Lujan said.
All that hard work on display is on his Instagram account, Pizzas by Carlo.
"I have a friend and she had a brother who loved his Mustang, so I put the Mustang on his pizza," Lujan said. "I had another friend that her husband just graduated from the fire academy. I did the badge on that pizza."
He just completed a pizza honoring Martin Luther King Jr., but he said the most popular designs involve anything that has to do with the Spurs.
"Of course, the Spurs, the Spurs logo, the Spurs name," Lujan said.
Some customers on Wednesday were very excited to see Lujan's Kawhi Leonard design.
"I think it's pretty cool," Dianda Tellez said. "I mean, not that many people know how to do stuff like that."
"I mean, this is awesome," Deliana Moreno said. "I think he's doing a fantastic job."
So far, Lujan has made about 35 specialty pizzas and he's hoping someday he can preserve some of his artwork.
"As time goes on, I'm going to perfect it even more," Lujan said. "And hopefully, next thing you'll know, they'll be up on a wall."