As WKU students and alumni gear up for Saturday’s homecoming game, locally-owned businesses are tasked with their own game plans.

Owners and managers of Hickory & Oak, Mellow Matt’s Music & More, Back Down South and The Hotel SYNC said they anticipate greater foot traffic during homecoming because of the weekend’s festivities.

While businesses face added challenges in preparation for increased visitors, they remain enthusiastic while recognizing WKU’s prominence in the Bowling Green community.

Hickory & Oak

Cody Anderson, general manager of downtown Bowling Green’s Hickory & Oak, said he intends to establish new relationships and foster old ones as WKU’s Homecoming attracts customers.

Anderson, manager since the restaurant’s opening in 2018, recognized the gleaming opportunity to “build business.”

“You get a lot of influx of people that have never been to Bowling Green before,” Anderson said. “Or vice versa, maybe they came to us their first weekend here and now they’re coming back for their second, maybe third, maybe fourth.”

Hickory & Oak sources much of its produce and ingredients from local farmers and its seafood from Evans Meats & Seafood out of Alabama, according to Anderson. Most appetizers involve seafood in some fashion, whether it’s oysters, shrimp cocktails or even ceviche.

The entree menu currently offers dry-aged wagyu beef, aged in-house, and other specialty meats.

“Nobody around here serves anything local, beef-wise, and they definitely don’t serve anything dry-aged in-house,” Anderson said.

Anderson said a customer from Seattle brought his family to the restaurant for four consecutive years while he was in town to see his daughter, a WKU student.

Anderson said Hickory & Oak’s prominence downtown at 705 State St. benefits business.

“We get a lot of kickback from anything that goes on at the university,” Anderson said.

Despite the appeal of a busy weekend as a restaurant manager, Anderson said he’s tasked with finding a “happy balance” when scheduling staff.

Anderson said the “big balance” of managing students is “making sure that the kids that need off get the night off.”

Reservations for homecoming weekend, or anytime during business hours, can be made on the Hickory & Oak website.

Mellow Matt’s Music & More

“Mellow” Matt Pfefferkorn, owner of the record shop on 1200 Smallhouse Road, said it will be “fully staffed” homecoming weekend.

“You would think stuff like Western football games or homecoming would detour people from getting out and about,” Pfefferkorn said.

That’s hardly the truth, according to Pfefferkorn.

“Those have actually been some of our bigger days because there’s more people in town, people that used to live here and go to Western,” Pfefferkorn said.

Mellow Matt’s specializes in vinyl records despite offering a plethora of physical media such as CDs, stereo equipment, cassettes and DVDs.

Mellow Matt’s has established ties to the WKU community throughout its 11 years of business aside from just selling to students and alumni. Both Pfefferkorn and his wife are WKU alumni. The store also partners with the WKU bookstore throughout the year for pop-up shops and has hosted DJ events during finals week.

“We love doing stuff at Western,” Pfefferkorn said. “We love having the connection and being part of the community, we always have a hand extended to Western stuff.”

In years past, Mellow Matt’s “Mellowversary” took place during WKU’s Homecoming.

“On those days, we’ll overlap a third person right in the middle, just for extra coverage,” Pfefferkorn said. “And generally, those months as you get closer to the holiday season are busier all the way around.”

Pfefferkorn said customers gravitate to the selection of vinyl, revisiting memories of their time at WKU and Mellow Matt’s.

However, vinyl is not just a thing of the past. A vinyl revival led to a steady increase in vinyl record sales in recent years due to National Record Store Day, COVID-19 and a nationwide culture of nostalgia, according to Camoin Associates.

“Out of all the products we sell, obviously we see records the most, and that’s what we do best with,” Pfefferkorn said.

Back Down South

Kristen Robinette, owner of the boutique Back Down South, said she expects operations at the shop to be busier as customers come to town from all over.

“You have a lot of people in from everywhere,” Robinette, a WKU alum, said. “Especially for homecoming, you get alumni in from everywhere […] in for all the traditions.”

Robinette said she was a cheerleader and Alpha Delta Pi sorority member during her time at WKU and has retained a relationship with the university and its sororities.

“Our family does the Mary E. Hensley scholarship, and we host a lecture for the education department,” Robinette said.

The Mary E. Hensley Lecture Series, named after Robinette’s great-grandmother, has invited educators to present topics of discussion since 1998, according to Robinette in an interview with WBKO News.

Though Robinette said the store specializes in selling clothes to “young professionals,” Back Down South is a place “where everybody’s welcome”, conveniently located at 433 Park Row, less than a mile from WKU.

Robinette said she also nurtures her connection to WKU by selling sorority merch at the store and hosted a “Greek pop-up shop” in August.

More recently, Robinette promoted a giveaway on the shop’s Instagram and Facebook accounts, offering two tickets to WKU’s Oct. 30 home football game, two WKU sweatshirts and two WKU hats.

The Hotel Sync

Though The Hotel SYNC isn’t the closest hotel to WKU, owner Preetesh Patel said it sees more reservations during homecoming weekend.

Patel, owner of the hotel for all 12 years of its existence, put it on the map by building it from the very foundation. Today, The Hotel SYNC finds itself at #1 on Tripadvisor’s rating of hotels in Bowling Green, prevailing over 36 hotels.

Along with being busier for WKU Homecoming, Patel said The Hotel SYNC receives more reservations during events at WKU and in the surrounding city of Bowling Green.

“I think it helps that when WKU has events, it happens to be that other places, whether it’s Beech Bend, or the city, or maybe some of the parks, have events going on,” Patel said. “The more events that happen together, it just makes everyone a little busier, whether it’s restaurants or hotels.”

Bowling Green Hot Rods games constitute some of these city events that attract travelers, according to Patel.

“It’s not as much a vacation as a mission to just go see a lot of minor league teams and visit a lot of minor league stadiums,” Patel said. “They’ll come and they’ll have a great time and I think that they enjoy the fact that it’s in a small town, easy to get in and out of.”

Reservations, while available, can be made on The Hotel SYNC website.

News Reporter Kane Smith can be reached at [email protected].