As Keeneland prepares to welcome 40,000 Breeders’ Cup fans, Lexington restaurant and bar owners are guessing what number from that crowd will venture to the city for feeding and watering Oct. 30 and 31.
Yet even without the Breeders’ Cup crowd, most would have been super-busy with Halloween and the UK-Tennessee matchup at Commonwealth Stadium. Throw in the world’s most prestigious horse racing event, and Lexington owners are looking at some incredible sales potential.
“It’s like the moon and stars have aligned for that weekend, right?” said Dave Gausepohl, specialty beer manager at Heidelberg Distributing Co. in Louisville. Gausepohl believes the craft beer provider will see sales in its Lexington accounts rise 10 to 15 percent. “Since this is Lexington’s first Breeders’ Cup, there’s no crystal ball to look into for that event. So we’re sort of basing our estimates on the increase we see during the Derby in Louisville.”
If the weather is favorable, the Breeders’ Cup-Halloween-Cats game trifecta could bump business substantially at Pazzo’s and The Village Idiot, two of three businesses owned by Tom Behr.
“I’d say we could do 20 to 25 percent more than we do on an ordinary Saturday night,” said Behr. “But if the weather’s bad, that could hurt it. It’s make or break with the weather.”
Specifically, Behr was talking about the pace of traffic into The Village Idiot, which is located in the Breeders’ Cup Festival Zone, the downtown cluster of blocked-off streets that will allow visitors to party safely in an auto-free zone. He said Pazzo’s, which is several blocks away from the zone, won’t benefit as much from foot traffic.
“We do expect visitors who want to see the UK campus might come that way, though,” Behr said. “We’re going to be ready for whatever happens.”
Though located at the edge of the Zone, owners of Belle’s Cocktail House expect a combination of private events and walk-in traffic will yield a record week. The bar normally is open Thursday through Saturday, but this year it’s open all week to host a pair of private Purple Bubble events and welcome tourists to the area.
“We’ve been stocking up for some time on bourbons we definitely don’t want to run out of, and we’ve doubled our Scotch selection to appeal to international travelers,” said co-owner Justin Thompson.
Belle’s will host a private Four Roses tasting Tuesday with guest chef Sue Zemanick of Gautreau’s restaurant in New Orleans. And on Wednesday, star chef Bobby Flay is managing the menu to be served alongside Van Winkle bourbons poured by Julian and Preston Van Winkle.
“Usually a UK football game weekend is big, and Halloween gives us a nice bump, but with Breeders’ Cup here, man, Lexington will be on steroids,” Thompson said. “Saturday night is going to be interesting.”
Just a block away at Dudley’s on Short, owner Debbie Long is watching the reservation book fi ll up. Lane’s End Farm reserved the entire restaurant for a private dinner Friday night, but a few tables remain open for Thursday and Saturday. On both nights Dudley’s will off er a special menu priced per person, not by selection. (As of press time, Long hadn’t disclosed the special menu’s cost.)
Unlike most nights, when Dudley’s will experience multiple waves of dinner patrons, the pace of Breeders’ Cup will limit the action to a single seating for Saturday night.
“I don’t see them getting out of Keeneland until about 7:30 on Saturday, so we’re expecting one seating,” Long said. Though the crush will be significant, she’s not bringing on extra staff to handle it. “You just do what you do normally, have fun with it and hope everyone enjoys the experience.
“Some people add more seats to get more customers in, but we’re not doing that.”
Across town, Azur Restaurant couldn’t have timed the enclosure of its outdoor patio any better. According to executive chef Jeremy Ashby, the partners had planned to weatherproof the patio for some time, but they decided “there’s never going to be a better time than now,” he said.
Ashby has created two menus for Breeders’ Cup week: a limited lineup of Azur favorites running Monday through Thursday, and a second, $125 per-person menu for Friday and Saturday.
“I’ve not finalized every part of that menu, but I can tell you we’re going high-end on the proteins,” Ashby said. “We’re talking fi let [mignon] and ahi tuna, not pork shoulder.”
Dupree’s Catering, acquired by Azur this year, is busy with multiple parties of 60 to 200 people on nearby horse farms during that week. Citing client confidentiality, Ashby wouldn’t reveal customers’ names or the events’ locations, but he said they’ll be held at local horse farms and include guests from all over the world.
“These are really cool parties dictated by a clientele who wants their own unique thing,” he said. He said two clients will bring in different groups each day for three days straight. “We’re doing everything from plated dinners to cocktail parties to food stations to an outdoor cowboy burgoo party.”
At least one of his menus will feature some special equine-influenced portabella mushrooms.
“They’re grown in horse manure compost from Keeneland,” he said. “And they were then grown on the back of a flatbed truck.”
Ashby said that despite losing an employee recently, he’ll not replace the staffer or add anyone to the corps at Azur.
“It’s too late to train someone to work in an environment like [Breeders’ Cup week],” Ashby said, adding that Dupree’s team is fully prepared to handle Breeders’ Cup. “It’s just one week, so everybody’s picking up an extra shift and muscling through.”
Saul Good owner Rob Perez believes Halloween and the Cats game could actually dampen dinner sales at his two suburban restaurants. His downtown restaurant, however, is a wild card given its proximity to the Zone.
“A lot of our customers don’t go out on Halloween because they’re at home giving out candy,” Perez said. “When there isn’t a game and Keeneland’s not open, it seems like they have more free time to go out.”
Still, he’s preparing for a large crowd at his North Broadway restaurant by retraining staff to make sure everything is up to standard.
“It’s a great time, a great excuse, really, to reboot and rethink about how we do things right,” Perez said. “We’re going to offer just our regular menu, things we do well, no specials.”
Perez is preparing for two potential scenarios: a normal Saturday night or a monster mash of customers. Strategy to compensate for the latter will be planned based on sales attributed to the four-show Garth Brooks concert last year at Rupp Arena, just a block from his restaurant.
“I think that’s going to give us a good indication of what to expect,” he said. “Either way, we’re ordering big to be ready for it all.”