Columbia County Restaurant Week brings hope to business owners

EVANS, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The Columbia County Convention and Visitors Bureau and Chamber of Commerce teamed up to help bring more people into businesses around our area.

If you need dinner plans, it’s restaurant week in Columbia County. Which means deals at your favorite local spots all week long. Columbia County’s Visitors Center is asking you to share a pic of your meal or drink and post it with the hashtag #columbiacountyeats.

We talked to restaurant owners who say sales mean just a bit more this year, this time of year is usually slow for the service industry. Think about new year’s resolutions, wanting to spend less money, eat better.

“It felt like the right thing to do to give back to our local restaurants. We feel like this is a really great opportunity to really highlight unique offerings we have here,” said Shelley Blackburn, executive director, Columbia County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Offerings that have taken a little bit more sacrifice, especially for the Crazy Empanada.

“Sometimes there’s nothing in the aisle so it’s been very hard. I think as a restaurant owner we have to modify our menu so we can still provide a service out there for everybody,” said Aracelis Hernandez, owner of Crazy Empanada.

Another year of the pandemic, supply chain issues, inflation, a worker shortage, the list goes on and on.

“It’s just kind of all-around...bad,” said Daniel Scholer, general manager of Docs Porchside.

New Year’s resolutions are supposed to make things better.

“It’s hard because you want to start the new year off and fix things that are wrong with your business and get the momentum going,” he said. “Everybody’s depending on it. Whether it’s a local chain or a chain, you’ve got local people working in there working counting on it.”

This week and those following are your chance

Hernandez said: “We there, we there, we’re making it there.”

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