Countdown to Super Bowl XLVI - Scotty's Brewhouse hopes its hard work pays off - Ingles

This is how Scotty's Brewhouse Downtown donned its game face for Super Bowl week:

Stocked up on $10,000 worth of extra dishes, utensils and other tableware, plus three new microwave ovens.

Doubled server ranks to 56 and kitchen staff to 45.

Hired five to 15 security staffers per shift. They're armed with hand-held clickers to count customers coming and going, to prevent overcrowding.

Leased 75 parking spots for staff in a lot a mile north of the restaurant at 1 Virginia Ave. Cost: another 10 grand, which includes a van to shuttle staff from 96th Street on Sunday, when the lot won't be used because the game-day price doubles to $100 a spot.

Pitched a leased, German-made structural tent on the plaza outside its front door, expanding customer capacity by 60 percent. One hitch: The tent hides the lighted Scotty's Brewhouse lettering on its building, and the city won't allow a temporary Scotty's sign on the tent.

And finally settled the question of whether to serve Coke or Pepsi.

Late one day last week, owner and founder Scott Wise tracked Super Bowl preparations from a laptop in his Northeastside office. Things were hectic.

Wise's normal slightly unshaven look had grown to a several-day stubble. His unread emails stood at 671 and counting. Staffers popped into his office with questions, and he kept muttering and typing himself reminder notes.

On his desk lay a promotional flyer for Scotty's catering business that will be inserted in all Scotty's menus this week.

For Wise, who's always thinking ahead, the flyer is part of a Super Bowl strategy that goes beyond a one-week grab for extra profits.

Wise and his partners see the game as a chance to promote their eight-restaurant chain to the elite crowd of business executives, journalists, big-name current and ex-athletes, and others who'll stop in at Scotty's for a beer or burger.

"There could be people here who'll approach me and say, 'What's it going to take to get one of your restaurants in my city?' "

To that end, Wise summoned the 150 servers, cooks, bartenders and others who'll be working at the Downtown Scotty's during Super Bowl week to a two-hour pep rally last weekend at a Downtown hotel. He plied them with doughnuts from Concannon's Pastry Shop (his favorite doughnut place in Muncie, where he went to college and opened his first restaurant) and revved them up with the story of the restaurant's founding and what's at stake during the biggest week in the chain's 15-year history.

His presence also reminded them, in case they didn't realize, that there is a Scotty who runs Scotty's.

"Our team got a lot out of it. It infused these kids with so much information they are not going to be surprised when it hits," said Dave Hornak, manager of the Downtown Scotty's.

As his boss plotted over-arching strategies from his office one day last week, Hornak met with his staff in a private dining room of the Downtown restaurant to review the nitty-gritty side of their Super Bowl plans. They include tweeting and writing Facebook posts about Scotty's and creating an hourly schedule of all 878 shifts that servers, bartenders and other front-of-the-house staff will fill this week.

Hornak, an ex-microbrewery manager, walked outside the room after the meeting broke up and confided he has one fear for the week: rain. "Rain's going to be the worst thing that could happen to us. It would keep people from walking around."

His staff -- mostly in their 20s, many college students -- are definitely jazzed about the big game and the 150,000 visitors who've already started trickling into town.

"You might get some famous people in here. I hope Tom Brady's girlfriend comes in," said Kevin Vlink, a server who's studying math at IUPUI.

Vlink hope the week brings super tips as well. "I'm hoping to make a grand for the week," said Vlink, who normally pulls down less than half that for a week on the job.

The Super Bowl already has brought some unanticipated benefits to Scotty's in the form of a new five-year soft drink contract.

PepsiCo, a perennial Super Bowl TV advertiser whose Pepsi Max brand is the official soft drink of the NFL, this month became the official soft drink supplier to Scotty's eight restaurants -- just in time for the big game.

Leveraging its Super Bowl marketing muscle, Pepsi dangled an offer to Scotty's that was too good to refuse. Pepsi made its products available at an effective price 10 percent under what Scotty's had been paying to stock rival Coca-Cola's lineup of soft drinks, Wise said. Since its founding, Scotty's had sold Coke products exclusively.

To clinch the deal, Wise asked Pepsi for tickets to the Super Bowl for himself and his wife, his parents and his COO, Eric Schamp.

Pepsi said yes, and Wise has this to say: "I hope they don't mind that I may be having a few beers at the game. But my wife is due in May with our fourth child, so she can enjoy some ice-cold Pepsi."

(source Indianapolis Star)

Posted by Necesitamos Mas Football on 11:07 a. m.. Filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0