Tigers Opening Day for years has felt like an unofficial holiday in Detroit. Diehard sports fans ready to exit their recovery from the winter blues and blossom into a spring season of excitement that awaits for their hometown baseball team.
However, at the height and even early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, state restrictions put a hold on all the fanfare of Opening Day. The rich tradition of families and friends coming down to the ballpark would soon come to a dramatic halt. Everything about our everyday life including social distancing became the heighten term and guidance issued for crowd settings.
The pandemic certainly put a dapper on the usual tailgating parties. Downtown Detroit was a ghost town.
Even in the following year and two since the 2020 shutdown, Opening Day slowly recovered to get back to normal, with a sprinkle of caution some fans stayed home and away from large crowds.
So, what has it meant for businesses in proximity to Comerica Park? Well, there is hope for a return to Opening Day normalcy. “I feel like last year was a strong indicator that some normalcy will return,” said Mikey Nichols, manager of Tin Roof, a sports-bar chain located across the street from Comerica Park stadium. “The sales we put up for Opening Day was a record breaker for the entire company.” There are 20 Tin Roof locations across the country, so for its Detroit location on the big baseball holiday to have the higher sales than any location, does send a message.
Tin Roof has been around for over a decade, yet the downtown Detroit location opened in 2020, an interesting year to do business.
“My first day at Tin Roof was actually Opening Day last year as a bartender before I became the manager. It was a nice and long busy shift. As long as the team do well, people will come out.”
For Nichols who caught COVID-19, he endured a lot a hesitation about what the future would hold after being in a constant state of caution during the height of the pandemic. But, today however, he has no concern that Opening Day can’t return to how they once were before 2020.
“For me in my lifetime, it’s all a state of it’s brand new, I’m wondering, I’m worried, and then you eventually start seeing people come out and say, ‘it’s safe again’.
For fans on a visit downtown just days before Opening Day and even taking pictures around the stadium, there is a renewed sense of adrenaline.
“I think it’s getting back to normal,” said Chris Grace, who was out with wife Cheryl Grace, as they visited the outside stadium grounds. The COVID era certainly wasn’t the spirit of a usual Opening day but “it was nice not to have it as crowed as normal.”
“You got to move around, no lines at the bathroom, and it was still a lot of fun. I think people now are lot more relaxed, less COVID cases and feeling more comfortable in the public.”
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