The Auburn University football team has eight home games scheduled for the 2010 season, but the athletes in uniform aren’t the only ones working hard to make the game days a success.

Businesses all around Auburn spend countless hours preparing to accommodate the students, alumni, fans and visitors who journey en masse to the Plains for each football game.

SkyBar Café, J&M Bookstores, Amsterdam Café and Ariccia each spent weeks preparing for Auburn’s first home game on Sept 4, against Arkansas State University.

The Auburn University Hotel and Conference Center is a popular choice for many Auburn fans. AUHCC offers a package deal to its gameday patrons with a minimum two-night stay for all eight home games, says Arif Kor, executive assistant manager of food and beverage for AUHCC. According to Kor, Ariccia is expecting more than 400 customers for the first home game.

“Everything we usually do, we just multiply by five,” says Kor. “We even have to stock up on the smaller supplies like disposable coffee cups.”

AUHCC will have more than 150 employees on staff during home game weekends, and in order to prepare the staff for the onslaught of hotel and restaurant customers, the employees go through training sessions and role play different scenarios that could occur on home game weekends.

“We started preparing for this during the summer, so by now we’re all just excited for the season to start,” says Kor.

SkyBar Café owner Dan Grider also believes that a successful gameday weekend comes from staff preparedness.

“We double our inventory and our staff is all hands on deck for Friday and Saturday night,” Grider says.

SkyBar will also be cooking and serving personal pizzas for its gameday patrons, a menu item that is only available during football season.

“We want to keep our customers happy and a lot of them don’t want to have to leave to go eat dinner, especially while the game is on, so we’ll serve pizza all day during game days,” says Grider.

Trey Johnston, owner of J&M Bookstores in Auburn, also believes that gameday readiness starts off with training the employees well.

“I tell all my people to get plenty of rest the week before and make sure our rookies are aware of what the day will really be like,” says Johnston.

Johnston expects about 8,000 customers to visit the two locations on game day, but he will be letting his employees leave to watch the game, and if Auburn wins, they’ll come back and open up the store again that night.

Local Auburn restaurant, Amsterdam Café, spends the entire off-season preparing for football season, according to manager Paul Willis. Willis is expecting about 600 customers on Friday night, but only around 250 on Saturday.

“The first game is always a little different, everyone wants to be outside tailgating with the other fans,” says Willis. “But we always expect a full house for the Friday night before the game and the Sunday morning after.”

Willis cross-trains his employees, so that each staff member knows what the other positions entail, which he believes adds to the restaurant’s good service and efficient turn over rates.

This weekend, the Auburn University Marching Band will make its way to AUHCC to provide a special performance for hotel and restaurant guests. The chocolate bar will also be available during each home game. Amsterdam Café will be featuring its Bloody Mary bar on Saturday at 11 a.m. and Sunday at noon. SkyBar’s performers for the weekend will be Michael Stacy Band and Blanton Reed on Friday and MoJiles and Tim Tyler on Saturday.

Getting ready for a home game weekend is no simple task. From scheduling staff, stocking up on inventory and preparing for rowdy customers, each business has dozens of factors to work into the gameday equation. However, each business does all it can to make the weekend go off without a hitch.

“We’re all ready to play ball, too,” says Johnston.







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