Tournament boosts restaurants
Rome eateries are being kept busy by hungry ACC players and fans.
“Slammed” is how Jay Shell succinctly summed up his restaurant business the past couple of nights.
“These have been the best Tuesday and Wednesday nights we’ve had since Christmas,” the owner of Rome City Brewing Company said. “Usually I recognize just about everybody in here, but that hasn’t been the case the past couple days.”
Shell said that he can tell many of his patrons are here for the 2017 ACC Tennis Championships, taking place at the Rome Tennis Center at Berry College.
They’re wearing teamaffiliated gear and two big groups came in wearing tennis clothes.
Taylor Charles, a server-manager at Johnny’s New York Style Pizza, took Shell’s summary to the next level.
“We’ve been super slammed,” she exclaimed. “The past few nights the whole restaurant has been completely full.”
Charles said they’ve had to bring in a couple extra servers at odd hours to help with the constant flow of customers.
They’ve also had several entire tennis teams come in as groups to eat there, she added.
Moe’s Original BBQ has noticed an especially
healthy uptick in their catering department. Owner Tyson Dube said catering orders have been pouring in from people associated with
the tournament. He said that he hasn’t had to bring in anybody extra to help around the kitchen, but the calls for orders have meant they’ve been working pretty much nonstop.
Leanne Abbott, with Fuddruckers, noted that while they have been busier due to what’s happening just a few miles from the restaurant, she and her fellow staff aren’t afraid of what’s to come over the next few days as the matches continue.
“You better believe we’re ready for them. Oh yes.”