'Like New Year's Eve All Over Again': With Eagles In Playoffs, Philadelphia Restaurants Prepping For Postseason Push
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- You can't think about a great Philadelphia Eagles game without great food to pair with it. As the Birds prep for Sunday's Wild Card game against the Seattle Seahawks, so too are local businesses as it'll be a big day for them too.
"It's kind of like New Year's Eve all over again but just crazier," Primo Hoagies manager Bill Jess said.
2020 feels a lot like January 2018. The Eagles are hungry for a title and Birds fans are hungry in general.
At the original Primo Hoagies in South Philly, the game plan is simple but similar -- win.
"It's double the business for an Eagles playoff game. The excitement is huge and with that, bigger parties. More people, more food," Jess said. "For us, we're just prepping lettuce, tomatoes and stuff like that to have ready for the trays. Get our sides together so when they come in, they can just come right out."
Their orders balloon to four-times their usual amount on a playoff Sunday, and that means prep work.
Forty pounds of American cheese, 50 pounds of turkey and ham and 300 loaves and bread.
It's just the postseason for the Eagles, but pizza places and wing spots all around the city are preparing for a playoff push as well, including places in South Philly hoping to push 4,000 pounds of chicken wings.
"Pizza, cheesesteaks, cheese fries, strombolis, hoagies," Mr. Wings manager Jerry Karalis said. "But the main thing is wings. That's what we're here for. We start today. They'll start the blue cheese and celery, bag up the wings and then we'll start around 8 a.m. on Sunday."
Karalis manages the Mr. Wings location at 5th Street and Oregon Avenue. He says the playoffs and Super Bowl runs require a long-view plan.
They typically will have over 10,000 wings waiting to be tossed, ordered three months in advance to be ready for one day.
The biggest order they've ever had? Seven-hundred wings at once.
"Typical Sunday isn't bad, but a Sunday during the playoffs? Crazy. We're prepared. There's no number that we're not prepared for," Karalis said.
Santucci's on North Broad Street says it'll sling 2,400 pies on Sunday.
"A normal Sunday can run an hour for delivery. An Eagles Sunday is two to three hours so it almost triples in business," co-owner Alicia Santucci said. "We feel like we feed the masses around here."
