Businesses are glad to see the Saskatchewan Roughriders return to action Friday night.
Ballers Rec Room Co-Owner and managing partner Kelly McLeod says they’re anticipating a big boost to business.
“In proximity, we’re so close to (Mosaic Stadium), so not having anything going on at the stadium — whether it be Rider games or concerts — kind of impacted us pretty big,” McLeod said. “It’s just exciting to see something to this magnitude to be back. It’s kind of weird to even think it’s allowed to happen, but we’re very excited.”
McLeod says they will have plenty of staff on hand for Friday night’s festivities despite some in hiring in the restaurant industry.
“The way they opened up everything restrictions wise, all-of-a-sudden, they wanted you to open double capacity, and that defines almost doubling your staff,” McLeod said. “As this progressed, staff was hard to find, but then you have every restaurant in the city to do the same thing.
“It was kind of hard to find the staff to make this, but we’ve been pushing hard, and we have a great team under our belt.”
McLeod says they’re set to go for Friday, as they have blocked off their parking lot, and they’re expecting to have a fun day.
“We’re just kind of doing a big tailgater,” Mcleod said. “There’s going to be a 30ft beer can sitting on the site, we have an outdoor bar, a barbecue, we’re going to keep everything kind of cheap for everybody: we’ve got $5 beers (Coors Light), we got $5 hamburgers and hot dogs, and I think we’re even doing taco in a bag.”
McLeod says they’ll be having events like this for the rest of the season. He adds it’ll be good to do this while the Riders have four games in a row at home to begin the season.
