KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The NFL Draft entertainment might be free, but this event is going to bring a lot of money to Kansas City.
According to Visit KC and Forbes, the NFL Draft will bring $100 million to the city due to the massive amounts of people coming to town.
However, restaurant owners in City Market are ensuring they have all the right ingredients for fans. They hope that more people means more money in their pocket, as this will be one of the biggest sporting events to hit Kansas City.
"That's how we are preparing our sales to be also, is to 2 to 5 times high than normal sales," said Matthew Kafka, the managing partner of Pigwich and Local Pig.
Slammed with orders, inside the Pigwich kitchen, cooks are getting a taste of what the business will look like during the NFL Draft.
“People are going to be going around the city everywhere coming in, 100 thousand people 150 thousand people,” said Kafka. “It makes up for the snow days that happen during the winter.”
Pigwich and Local Pig are tossing around ideas on how to keep the money coming in and the orders going out.
“So extra people on one shift to give breaks, we are going to start bulking up on a lot of our food products to make sure we are not running out,” said Kafka.
Preparing for sales to be sizzling hot, Pigwich and Minsky's say more people equals more money for everyone, managers and staff included.
“Imagine we are going from $10 an hour on those tips to all of a sudden we are doing $15-20 an hour on tips,” said Kafka.
Chris Mayer, the general manager of Minsky's in the City Market, is thinking of ways to improve the restaurant's process ahead of the NFL Draft.
“We’re going to try to make our pick-up area more efficient and faster for our kitchen to be able to push out more product,” said Mayer.
Both businesses say they are working hard in advance, hoping to make their mark on those who want to get a taste of Kansas City.
“As long as we keep everything out in front of us and stay organized, I think we will be just fine,” said Mayer.
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