FAYETTEVILLE : Retail welcomes bikers or closes; houses rent out
Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2008
FAYETTEVILLE - At Brewski's on Dickson Street, preparing for Bikes, Blues and BBQ is simple: Double the staff, triple the liquor and quadruple the beer.
As the vanguard of bikers descended Wednesday on Fayetteville for what's shaping up as a jumbo party, bar manager Travis Wooten stocked Brewski's with the confidence of a man who knows how to satisfy the thirst of thousands.
"I don't know how much [beer and liquor ] we have, but we stuff it to capacity,"Wooten said. "We'll hide behind the bar and clean up when they're gone."
Next door, The Common Grounds was bracing for the onslaught.
Manager Jeff Massengale not only had to think about hard beverages, but food and coffee as well.
"We get swamped,"he said. "The bikers cruise and cruise until they can't handle it anymore, and then we get hit."
The need for food is so great that a refrigerated truck is parked behind nearby Hog Haus Brewing Co. - owned by Common Grounds - all week.
"By Sunday night it tapers off to the locals and it's just the help that's drinking,"Massengale said. "And then we get ready for [the Florida Gators game against the Razorbacks ]."
If the event were only so predictable and profitable for other businesses in town.
DIFFERENT APPROACH Don Choffel, co-owner of Dickson Street Bookshop, said he plans to stay open but expects his weekend sales to drop by half, as they always do during the rally. Locals stay away, while the bikers show no interest in his wares. "A regular customer said she needed mysteries,"Choffel said with a grimace," but she'll wait until next week."
Still, Choffel had several biker books on a display outside the front door, holding out hope a visitor or two would stop and make a purchase.
Up in the next block at French Metro Antiques, the plan was to close at 5 p.m. Wednesday and reopen Monday. Owner Renee Hunt has been at the location in the 200 block of West Dickson for five years and has had little luck with the bikers.
"Bikes and Blues has done well for the bars and restaurants, but I'm not sure retail has shared that success,"Hunt said. One year she tried to sell Harley-Davidson shirts from France, but that didn't work out. Instead of staying open for walk-in sales, she hopes customers will browse her Web site, where her line of European antiques are listed.
A bit south of Dickson, the Highroller Cyclery bicycle shop had a note on the door saying it was closed from Wednesday through Sunday "to celebrate cycling and the beautiful fall weather."
Though some businesses close during the rally, it's obvious that others are hungry for biker dollars.
Bordino's, known for its high-end Italian cuisine, had a sign on the front window saying," Welcome Bikers, Check out our BBBBQ Specials !"The specials were happy hour prices on domestic beers and $ 5 mixed drinks like cosmopolitans. From its billboard, Froggy's advertised live music, $ 5 burgers and $ 4 brats. Plus, vendors were busy outside, laying out their merchandise - leather goods, patches, posters and helmets - knowing that a lot of money could be spent over the next three days.
By 1 p.m. Wednesday, several Dickson Street establishments were crowded with eaters and drinkers who watched as men with beards and tattoos crept down the street on their loud, shiny choppers. Music blared from the parking lot on West Street, and city crews raced to and fro as they readied the area for a monster crowd.
ATTRACTING ATTENTION Meanwhile, merchants on the downtown Square were wondering if the bikers even knew about their part of town. Sitting five blocks south of Dickson Street and even further from the Randal Tyson Track Center, the Square is not the center of activity during Bikes, Blues and BBQ. But if enough bikers rolled through, they might stop and buy something.
"I'll stay open - you never know,"said Storm Carr, owner of the Block Avenue antique gallery Feather Your Nest. "The people who buy bikes are the kind of people I'd like to attract."
Carr has been on the Square for years but has never seen an appreciable level of activity during the biker rally.
"The local people don't come out, and the bikers don't come in,"he said. Even if an antique is something that can't be loaded onto a motorcycle, he said he still could make a sale. Feather Your Nest delivers worldwide. Like Carr, Tess Gibbs, owner of Corazon, a gallery for Latin American home furnishings, plans on staying open. "It's exposure to me,"said Gibbs. "These are people I otherwise would not meet."Like Carr, Gibbs says it's the responsibility of the merchant to stay open, even if the climate is not perfect for brisk sales. "My attitude is that it's only three days,"Gibbs said. "Sometimes it's loud and chaotic, but it doesn't last long."
CREATING OPPORTUNITY Housing the bikers has become big business, and not just for the hotels and campgrounds. Some home owners in Northwest Arkansas have let the bikers know their houses are available, and the bikers are taking them up on the offers.
Posted on the Bikes, Blues and BBQ blog as well as on Craigslist. com, an online classifieds Web site, homes in the region are renting for as much as $ 3, 000 for the four days, or for as little as $ 200 per night.
In Prairie Grove, friends Megan Powell and Sara Lawhorn decided to cash in on the rally.
Powell rented her house for $ 240 per night to six bikers from Miami, Okla., and Lawhorn rented her house to four riders from Texarkana for $ 225 per night. The bikers arrive Friday.
Powell got the idea from her brother, who rents his house during Prairie Grove's Clothesline Festival, held every Labor Day weekend.
"I decided to make a little money,"Powell said. "Anything in the house is available to them."
That includes clean linens, toiletries, the large screen TV and movies, washer and dryer, closed garage and fenced backyard. Her rules, like Lawhorn's, are simple: No parties, no pets and no smoking indoors.
Powell hopes the guests behave and enjoy the house.
"I want to build a relationship with these people so that they know they have a place to stay next year,"Powell said.
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