Thousands of Ole Miss Football fans swarm Oxford for game weekends. Local restaurants and shops start preparing for the massive influx of customers months before football season kicks off.
Restaurants adjust menus, increase staffing and prepare food in larger quantities, while retailers anticipate increased demand for popular products. For businesses that are familiar with game day crowds, the preparation has become part of the routine.
John Currence, owner of four Oxford restaurants — City Grocery, Ajax Diner, Big Bad Breakfast and Bouré — has worked in the restaurant business for nearly 40 years. Currence said the biggest challenge is managing the sudden influx of customers without overstaffing during slower parts of the week.
“It’s not as if we can really expand our workforce to accommodate that because then folks get robbed during off-peak times,” Currence said.
Instead, his restaurants adjust their menus during football season to focus on food that can be prepared and served quickly and easily. While those changes may not be obvious to customers, Currence said much of the preparation happens behind the scenes.
“There are subtle changes that most people don’t know,” Currence said. “It’s really more what’s happening behind-the-scenes that gives us the ability to deliver to as many people as we can.”
Businesses also have to accommodate for larger-than-normal crowds without exceeding their maximum capacity.
“We can only get so many people inside of the buildings at any given time,” Currence said.
At Aplós, a Greek restaurant that opened in Oxford in June, preparation begins with hiring and training employees. General manager Maggie McCullough said having a properly trained staff is one of the most important parts of preparing for a busy weekend.
“To be 100% honest, preparation starts with training, from the standpoint of hiring,” McCullough said.
McCullough said the restaurant’s team arrives as early as 6 a.m. to make sure enough food is ready for when doors open at 11 a.m. Aplós operates as a fast-casual restaurant and aims to have customers’ food ready within 15 to 20 minutes, making advance preparations vital to meeting customer expectations.
“It’s the amount of prep that goes into our concept,” McCullough said. “All the little sauce cups that go on every dish, the amount of time that it takes our runners and cashiers to fill those, as well as our prep team that … makes sure everything is seasoned, ready and prepared enough for the weekend.”
McCullough said that game day availability for employees is important to discuss during the hiring process. She considers commitment to working on football weekends when interviewing potential employees, since those are some of the busiest times of the year for restaurants in Oxford.
“Those are our busiest times,” McCullough said. “We’re not gonna just close because it’s a football game.”
Clothing stores, vintage markets and other attractions also have to accommodate for the customer increase.
LuLu’s store associate Kylie Sager sorting inventory on Sept. 7. Photo by Alana Brown-Davis
Mandi Barrett, owner of The Mustard Seed Mall, said the store begins preparing about a month in advance by scheduling additional employees for home game weekends.
“We do our scheduling usually about a month out and on any home game weekends,” Barrett said. “We make sure we have double (the) staff.”
The Mustard Seed Mall, which has been operating in Oxford since the early 1990s, is closed on Sundays, unless it’s a game day weekend, when visitors often stay in Oxford throughout Sunday.
Barrett said the store also prepares by making sure it has enough cold drinks and employees available to handle the increased traffic. Each employee is required to work at least one game day Saturday and one game day Sunday during the season.
However, Barrett highlighted that the store tries to give employees flexibility by offering shorter shifts. Rather than requiring employees to work five- or six-hour shifts, employees typically work between two and a half and three hours, even on a game day.
“You could work in the morning, and then go to the Grove in the afternoon. You have a little more flexibility,” Barrett said.
That flexibility is especially important in Oxford, where many employees are also university students who want to experience tailgating and cheering from the student section.
For Barrett, the crowds also bring different kinds of customers into the store. She said women who might normally spend game day in the Grove sometimes visit The Mustard Seed Mall instead, particularly when the weather is hot.
“A lot of women who would typically hang out in the Grove come, especially on the hot game days, to the store and shop and hang out there, as opposed to sitting in the Grove,” Barrett said.
For businesses, being ready for game day is not only about handling larger crowds but also creating an experience that keeps visitors coming back.
While restaurants and shops prepare for larger crowds, grocery stores such as Chicory Market experience their own version of game day demand.
Reese Soligon, a junior integrated marketing communications student from Chelan, Wash., who works as a cashier at Chicory Market, said the increase in customers requires the store to adjust everything from food portions to staffing.
“We factor in the amount of people coming to Oxford (during) its big weekends,” Soligon said. “The amount of food we usually get goes up a ton.”
The number of customers can increase dramatically, particularly on Sundays when parents shop for their kids to stock up snack supplies for upcoming weeks. Soligon said Chicory Market can have more than 100 customers checking out per hour during busy periods.
The store also increases the number of cashiers working during high-traffic weekends. Soligon mentioned that a summer weekday may require only one cashier, while busier periods can require three.
“You’ve got to have three for this because people show up in surges,” Soligon said. “It takes a lot of people to make the process executed correctly.”
Social media has also become an important part of Chicory Market’s preparation and communication with customers. Soligon said the store’s social media pages keep customers updated about new products and what is available.
Parents and fans visiting Oxford for game days also use Chicory Market for catering and other services.
For businesses that have been preparing for football weekends for many years, the crowds may be unpredictable, but the processes have become familiar.
