Car Week brings increase sales to local restaurants
jose.romo
MONTEREY, Calif. (KION-TV) — Restaurants in Monterey are seeing a sales boost with tourists visiting for Car Week. Many workers in the restaurant industry see this as an opportunity, but have to work more hours to welcome the thousands of tourists that flow into the peninsula.
“Visitors that are here, you know they are visiting the 35-plus Car Week events, but they’re also discovering new places in the peninsula, in the county,” says Sandy Hurta with See Monterey. “It’s a great time for local businesses.”
Wednesday morning, restaurant workers at Monterey’s El Torito worked hard to prep ahead of welcoming tourists and car enthusiasts during their busy times.
“We’re starting off the week with a 3% to 5% in sales. And that’s just because we are just starting the week, so we can only imagine how much it is going to increase for the weekend.
Leslie Gallegos, Assistant Manager at El Torito, adds that their location has seen an increase in people calling in for reservations. She says usual wait times increase to roughly 30 to 45 minutes around 8:30 pm when car meets come to an end.
“Es es más trabajo, incluso es más presión, más, más estrés,” Sous Chef Andres Perez says that with more clients, more preparation hours are needed. He says that stress builds up among kitchen staff, and he puts it upon himself to ensure the kitchen is a controlled chaos.
“We usually start hiring way before to get ready for this time, so when it comes to this time, we’re already ready,” adds Gallegos. “The preparation starts early in the week to get ready throughout the weekend. Since we make everything fresh, it’s a lot of work. But we are staffed up.”
Car week is a highly anticipated event for the restaurant industry, and staff at this location share that they proactively hire between 15 to 20 people to assist with their increased sales. They say their biggest challenge, “we don’t have enough seating to take care of everyone, but it would be that our obstacles I wish we had more seating, even outdoor seating, and then our wait times, of course, when it gets busy.”
Sandy with See Monterey adds that this week serves as a great padding for local businesses.
“We see a lot of our hotels generating a lot of their income for the rest of the year during this time, and the same thing for the workers and local hospitality businesses. Sometimes, car week is that little push for the rest of the year,” Huerta adds.
See Monterey adds that car week is of great help to the overall local economy. Since 1950, they say that the Concours d’elegance has generated $43 million for local non-profits and hospitals in the area.