Last night New Year's Eve was being celebrated throughout downtown, as people went to their favorite establishments to ring in the new year.
Business we spoke to said it was perfect that New Year's Eve and Day landed on a weekend. They said with the weather clearing up a bit and people being able to make it into town, it kept them busy.
After a long year of social distancing, re-instating mask mandates and the emergence of different COVD-19 variants, last night was a big one for businesses downtown. As some people wanted to ring in the new year at their favorite bar or restaurant.
Brent Ross, the Manager of the Brewers Cabinet says "A lot of New Years Resolutions have been getting to the gym, cutting back on booze, but you know our family and cliental keep supporting, and we love seeing them day in and day out and we're having a great New Years day."
Businesses open New Year's Eve said they had a steady crowd, but the cold weather did entice some people to head home earlier.
Ross adds "We had a nice steady crowd all night and kind of killed a little bit early."
Matthew Taylor, the Culinary Manager of the Wild River Grille tells us "Yesterday was very busy, we had a lot of people come out looking for a good dinner, it was fun! We had a set menu, it was a coursed out meal we ran 5 courses."
Some businesses do a little something extra for New Years celebrations making it special for their guests.
Taylor explains "We try and run a special set menu that's out of the ordinary completely created by our culinary team."
Downtown businesses thought last night was busy, but the very first day of the year after was just the same.
Ross mentions "It's amazing actually, everyone is out and about much earlier than I anticipated."
Jack Grunmeyer, a Bartender at Pignic says "We pretty much immediately got packed up and we've been doing really good. We're doing a special today with breakfast burritos and everyone's been loving those, everyone's just grabbing bottomless mimosas and hanging out for the day."
Taylor adds "Everyone was waking up and coming in to enjoy a lunch after the long night."
All of the businesses would say this New Years Eve was a success in more ways than one.
Grunmeyer tells us "I though the new year was going great, everybody seemed to be happy to go out and socialize a bit and everyone was being pretty safe."
Ross explains "It's kind of one of those blessings in disguise, where we're not super rowdy downtown and the bars don't get slammed, we don't have any of the problems or the accidents that typically happen downtown."
Each and every business we spoke to also had a resolution, some said they want to get their name out there more and stick to their brand, other said they want more live music in their building, and some said they want to keep their long standing relationships with vendors strong.
As we enter 2022, there was only one thing left for these businesses to say...
Grunmeyer "Happy New Years."
Ross "Happy New Years Ya'll."
Taylor "Happy New Years, cheers to 2022."
