Weekend festival boosts downtown businesses

COLUMBIA — The Roots ’N’ Blues ’N’ BBQ festival brought the scent of barbecue smoke to downtown Columbia this weekend, and, according to several downtown businesses, it also brought the smell of greenbacks.

Mike Ebert, owner of the Regency Hotel Downtown, compared the business at his hotel over the weekend to business during a home Big 12 football game.

“It couldn’t have been better,” he said, noting that the 100-room hotel was sold out Friday and Saturday nights. About 85 percent of the guests were either musicians or festival attendees.

An informal survey conducted through e-mail by the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau of eight hotels revealed that business was brisk overall. Most hotels were almost full and some were sold out, said Megan McConachie of the bureau.

However, the bureau’s survey found most of the guests at hotels outside the district were in town for the Express Scripts Multiple Sclerosis Bike Ride, which also took place over the weekend.

Many downtown restaurant owners also saw a spike in business.

Sanford Speake, an owner and manager at Sycamore on East Broadway, said the restaurant was “incredibly busy.”

“It was almost all new faces,” he said, describing the crowd.

Leigh Lockhart, owner of Main Squeeze Natural Foods Cafe on Ninth Street, said sales on Saturday were the highest in 10 years.

One of her top sellers was a BBQ seitan sandwich made with wheat gluten. Main Squeeze also offered special “Roots ’N’ Blues” muffins, made with strawberries, cornmeal, blueberries and lavender.

Lockhart said she met a woman from Oprah’s production company who read about the festival in the New York Times.

“She came down and said it was the best lineup she’d ever seen,” Lockhart said.

Lockhart gave her a coconut haystack — a Main Squeeze treat — and told her to tell Oprah it was Lockhart’s favorite thing.

Carrie Gartner, director of the Columbia Special Business District, said that besides boosting local business over the weekend, the festival could help the local economy by luring any tourists back to Columbia.

“It’s important to bring people in for one or two days, but it’s also important to impress people enough that you have customers every day of the year,” she said.

Gartner added that she had “no doubt” that this was the case with the Roots ’N’ Blues ’N’ BBQ festival. Although the festival was a boom for many restaurants and bars, the event appeared to have a modest impact on other businesses.

Jessica LaHue, owner of My Secret Garden on Ninth Street, said increased traffic and road closures caused some delays with her shop’s flower deliveries.

Brandon Perry, owner of Something New Hair Clinic on East Broadway, said he got a few more walk-ins than he would see on a typical weekend. The salon stayed open a few hours later on Friday and Saturday to accommodate customers.

At Tiger Taxi, drivers were “a little busier” over the past few days, dispatcher Terry Hancox said. Most customers were going downtown to the festival, and road closures meant it took slightly longer for drivers to reach their destinations.

“It’s hard to try to explain to intoxicated people that we can’t get to the bar immediately,” Hancox said. “They don’t want to hear that.”

Missourian reporter Katie Krasczak contributed to this report.