With so many people in the city, businesses getting much-needed help
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — The weekend of concerts continued at PNC Park on Friday night.
Several bands of the 1980s rocked the thousands of people in attendance. With so many people in town, businesses are getting some much-needed help.
According to some of the restaurant owners downtown, the number of people they are seeing is back to pre-pandemic levels. They hope this can be the beginning of long-term success.
"You add an extra 35,000, 40,000 people down here and the whole scene changes," Redbeard's on Sixth general manager Brent Kightlinger said.
He said it started Wednesday night and expects it to run through the Steelers' preseason game on Saturday and the Metallica concert on Sunday.
"It was kind of was a perfect storm. You have people coming into town for a lot of different events, and it's a whole weekend of events," Kightlighter said.
For restaurants like Sultan Doner Gyro, big events like this are needed. Owner Sinan Camozu opened up shop less than a year ago during the pandemic and it hasn't been easy.
"It was tough. The winter, we just opened and last winter was horrible," he said.
Camozu said the last two nights have been fantastic for business, and he is looking forward to the next couple of days. It also gives him a chance to gain new customers.
"I'm still new. I try to my name out and that crowd is going to help me out," Camozu said.
According to Kightlinger, he is seeing numbers that are back to pre-pandemic levels.
"We're talking bigger numbers than the Three Rivers Arts Fest, we're talking better than the Fourth of July. We're looking at a lot of the numbers we do on Light Up Night," Kightlinger said.
For all of the businesses, the hope is that this can be a continued trend.
"Every day I'm just praying to God for the business coming back, for Pittsburgh getting back to normal," Camozu said.
