Peninsula businesses expecting busy weekend

It’s a big weekend for Central Coast businesses as tens of thousands of golf fans pour into town for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Many restaurant owners said they’re booked solid as of Friday.

“We’re fully sold out today (Friday), tomorrow night, tomorrow lunch, next lunch,” said David Baron, executive chef at Casanova Restaurant.

Staff at Casanova said they’ve been prepping nonstop for this weekend. On Thursday night, they served more than 400 people.

“It’s great. We’ve been doing this almost 40 years at Casanova, so we’re good at that,” said Walter Georis, the owner of Casanova.

But it’s not just Pro-Am fans. Making it even busier, it’s also Valentine’s Day, a three-day weekend and the weather is near perfect.

“It doesn’t always fall that way, I believe last year it did as well. It’s double challenging for us because we have a lot of large groups and then you have a lot of couples,” said Georis.

Tammy Blount with the Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau said she can tell it’s going to be a busy weekend by tracking how many people are logging onto www.seemonterey.com.

“Website traffic this week is up 18 percent. We’ve got mostly organic searches, people looking to dine, things to do for Valentine’s Day, things to do for a long weekend,” said Blount.

It’s no surprise tourism is the number one employer on the peninsula. Blount said the industry employs 23,000 people – and there are tax benefits.

“The tax offsets for us as residents is more than $500 per person, per year. So that certainly helps our cities and communities provide the services that we need,” said Blount.

And staff at Casanova said they don’t mind all the extra business.

“We’re still welcoming people to come and give us a call and we’ll try to accommodate you and give you the experience that we’re known for,” said Georis.