Kansas City businesses are gearing up for an invasion of out-of-town baseball fans during next week’s World Series games.
Hotel rooms are getting booked up quickly. The Ambassador Hotel in downtown has been booked solid during the games next week since last Friday.
“We started getting a lot of calls and requests for bookings right around the time the Baltimore series games begun last week,” said Joe DeMarco, revenue manager for the Ambassador Hotel.
An online search found hotels in downtown Kansas City, the Country Club Plaza and near Kauffman Stadium are all booked up. We found some hotel rooms near the Kansas City International Airport or in Johnson County, Kan.
“There's such a huge economic impact that we are feeling the extreme positive effects of,” DeMarco said. “Everybody is so, it's such a thrilling time for us.”
Businesses are looking forward to a bigger crowd as well, especially those along the construction route on Main Street.
“The construction slows down things a little bit,” said Brooke Poos, general manager at The Bulldog. “It's not as scary as it looks.”
The Royals success has helped business pick up, and Poos is hoping for more of the same.
“Postseason has been great,” she said. “It's been a lot of out-of-town business. We've had a lot of people that don't generally care about baseball who are thrilled and ready to watch.”
Laura Brinker at Anton’s Tap Room said their restaurant is also making some staffing changes to accommodate a bigger crowd.
“The World Series is very exciting,” said Brinker. “We're definitely anticipating a lot of business.”
She just hopes out-of-town guests will follow their taste buds, navigate around the orange cones and find their way to the food.
“I think the construction might intimidate them for a little bit, but I definitely think the food will overpower that and they'll come here anyway,” she said.
Both restaurants said they anticipate their busiest time to be after the games, when Royals fans are celebrating wins and people start walking around.
“We get a ton of traffic between Crown Center and downtown and River Market, so hopefully some of those walkers with the weather being nice, we'll catch some of them in here,” said Poos.
