by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
If there’s one thing just about everyone loves to do, it’s eat, especially when it means going out to a restaurant instead of cooking and cleaning up at home. Last week, thousands of diners decided to do it Downtown.
The results are in for Downtown Vision, Inc.’s inaugural “Eat Up Downtown” and by all accounts it was a hit with patrons and restaurateurs alike.
“It exceeded our expectations, especially since this was the first year for the event and it’s a new idea for Jacksonville,” said Pamela Elms, DVI’s director of marketing.
Historically, late August is usually not the busiest time of the year for the food service and hospitality industries thanks to the hot weather, the end of the summer vacation season and the beginning of the school year. Despite all that, giving people their choice of 15 special menus at a fixed price of $25 per person gave them a reason to come Downtown for dinner.
“We were even busier than we expected every night except Sunday. One night, we seated more than 400 people. That’s very unusual in the summer. We don’t usually see that amount of business in one night unless it’s something like New Year’s Eve and most of the people who came here last week had never eaten in the restaurant before,” said Linda McLean at Plaza III The Steakhouse.
She added that the event even brought people in from the beach.
“It’s always great to see people lined up to get into the restaurant and we didn’t have to do any of the advertising. DVI did a heck of a job on this event. It helped people understand that Downtown is a great place for dinner,” said McLean.
The promotion effort behind the week-long event was also an asset for Bourbon Bayou at the Landing, said manager Trish McRoy. The restaurant has been open for just four months and so far has depended on people discovering the cajun and creole menu and telling their friends.
“We were twice as busy as we have been during the week,” said McRoy. “Our only advertising has been word-of-mouth so it was great to get more mouths. We will definitely do it again next year.”
Scott Stuckey, Omni Hotel general manager, also said the week was a winner.
“It was tremendous for our volume at Juliette’s. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are typically quiet nights in our restaurant unless there is an event at the T-U Center, but last week, we tripled our numbers those nights compared to other weeks.”
The Wine Cellar also experienced a remarkable week of business according to manager Gary Gebert. He said last week was unusually busy for this time of year based on the 27-year history of the popular Southbank dining destination.
“For late August and the first week of school, the response was overwhelming. Seventy-five percent of our business came from the promotion and we saw lots of faces we hadn’t seen before. Hopefully it cultivated some future business.”
Like other participating venues, Gebert reported a higher than usual number of no-shows based on reservations. He also said offering the prix fixe menu led to servers making less money on tips.
“The check averages were lower (than usual) so that meant gratuities were also lower.
“We’ll definitely participate again next year, but we’ll probably add an automatic gratuity to each check like we do year-round for parties of five or more,” said Gebert.
Elms said based on last week’s results, “Eat Up Downtown will be on our calendar again next year.”
Stuckey, who is a DVI board member and chair of the marketing committee, believes this year’s experience could lead to bigger things.
“Next year I think we could expand it to two weeks and I’ve lived in cities where this kind of promotion was also used to develop more lunch business on weekdays.”
“It was definitely a success for Downtown and that’s what it’s all about. Our goal is to grow it into a great annual event,” added Elms.