New Jersey businesses strike gold with St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl
From bars to restaurants, many business owners are feeling lucky as people raise a pint and spend some green this St. Patrick's Day weekend.
High above Haddon Avenue in Haddon Township, it looked like a sea of green.
"It's a great time, everybody is having fun, the music is going, the bars are great, it's a lot of fun," said Sarah Castaneva, who lives in Pennsauken.
"It's a blast having fun with friends, drinking, running around, beautiful day. Let's go, Go Birds," said Brandon Creel, who lives in Cherry Hill.
For eight hours, many people took part in Haddon Township's St. Paddy's Day Pub Crawl.
Jitney buses were on the move offering free rides and dropping partyers off at the 10 locations on the crawl that are all within a mile of each other. The township calls it the shortest distance between two pints.
"It's one of the cool things that Haddon Avenue and this entire community has. There's pub crawls, theres different events all the time where you can meet the people you live near, so it reinforces the community aspect of living in this area," said Matt Peoples, who lives in Haddon Township.
"I met my wife actually on St Patrick's Day at a different bar crawl, but we celebrate it every year even though we have zero percent Irish in us. I think everyone is Irish this St. Paddy's Day weekend, and we really have a good time," said Tom Szymanski.
A line of people stretched to the street outside Westmont Liquors. A crowd filled the parking lot at the Pour House, and Reunion Hall was hopping. For many businesses on the Avenue, St. Paddy's weekend means a lot of green.
"We do very well, it's one of our busiest Saturdays of the year, but it's also exposure people coming in seeing what we're about," said Vincenzo Barone, who owns Bricco Coal Fired Pizza.
This year, Barone also fired up a grill outside the restaurant to sell 500 hot dogs as another way to cash in as people celebrated.
"Just the energy is unbelievable. Everybody is laughing and having a great time up and down the Avenue, it's just great for the community," he said.
Many bars and businesses are now gearing up for another round. Day two of the Pub Crawl is on Monday from 2-10 p.m. The Jitney will be rolling down the avenue again, offering free rides from all 10 locations.
