Food chain in East Texas prepares for influx of visitors ahead of total solar eclipse
TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - We are less than a week away from the total solar eclipse and businesses within the path of totality are gearing up for thousands of people.
“We are not fortunate tellers we cannot tell what’s going to happen with this,” said Mike Tieman the area director of Slim Chickens.
He looks over four restaurant locations from Tyler to Texarkana and with restaurants in the path of totality they’re preparing ahead of time.
“We are staffing up pretty heavily, we are stocking up,” said Tieman.
They will be having around 15 people in each store from Friday till Monday morning.
“Monday and Saturdays are usually not a busy day for us but what we understand is there’s going to be 50 to 100 thousand people migrating to this area between here through Texarkana so we just want to be ready,” said Tieman.
They’re also ordering extra products ahead of time.
“One we are anticipating to be really busy this weekend but suppliers say we may not have product on Monday.”
One way he prepared for the eclipse was through hotels.
“We’re seeing that a lot of our hoteliers are making sure our restaurants know too that they’re getting those bookings so we can be ready for more impact,” said CJ Clayton the tourism manager, of the City of Longview.
Clayton says some East Texas hotels are already filling up.
“Tyler looks like they’re really being affected, I know we’ve been in contact with Mineola and they, of course, don’t have anything available there for people to stay in,” said Clayton.
With thousands of people traveling to East Texas, many businesses will feel the impact.
”It’s exciting for everybody, we have a lot of small and pops businesses around here that are going to get a lot of exposure but even for us we are a smaller chain,” said Tieman, “It’s going to be nice to get that exposure and get out there.”
Tieman also says traffic could be an issue not only for the restaurants but also for his suppliers.
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