Local businesses have had to hurry hard to meet the blast of service created over the weekend from the Capital One Canada Cup of Curling.
An influx of avid curling fans has swept into Moose Jaw and been keeping local establishments busy with high volumes of foot traffic and orders.
“Friday was the busiest by far,” Pita Pit employee Andrew Wong told the Times-Herald. “We had some curling teams come in and there is definitely a spike in business.”
At lunch they were lined up out the door, Veroba’s server Leigh-Ann Elliott said in between lunch and the upcoming dinner rush. “You get 75 people at once and you know it’s going to be crazy.”
She added the influx of business created by the curling event has been a great thing for the entire community of Moose Jaw. To fully understand the amount of fans and drawing power the Canada Cup offers, it was just announced on Sunday the attendance record this year broke the previous record held by Yorkton for a Canada Cup event.
“All you can do is start at one end and work your way through,” Elliott said towards dealing with the endless supply of hungry customers. “It’s just been packed, the last few days have been a blur.”
Emily Ma and Amy Philpott, baristas at the Starbucks located in the Safeway directly across from Mosaic Place, where the Canada Cup is taking place know all too well about the drawing power curling holds in Saskatchewan. “We get crazy lunch rushes,” Ma said. “Usually we’ll get steady rushes in between the matches –– we just get swarmed.”
Ma and Philpott both agreed the schedule of the tournament has had a huge impact on the demand and volume they’ve seen over the weekend. “We’re getting twice as many people coming to us, because people will stop for a coffee before they head into the next match and at the same time get the people who are just leaving the last match,” Philpott said. “It’s just been a double whammy with the Canada Cup and people picking up Christmas gifts now that we have our holiday products.”
For more on this story pick up the next issue of the Times-Herald.
