Local businesses provide plenty of options to make Super Bowl experience more enjoyable

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - Super Bowl fans had plenty of options when planning how to watch the big game around the region.

Whether fans intended to stay home, and entertain their friends, or go out to a restaurant for kick-off, businesses in the area offered ways to enhance the experience.

One restaurant manager said Sunday, football season is the busiest time of year for Sunday business.

"If people are having fun they want to come back," Sharon Ballard, Restaurant Manager of Champions, said.  "It's not just dining, it's not just sitting down and eating it's the atmosphere.  And the relationship you have with your server and bartenders."

Ballard said her restaurant, and others in town, run several promotions to bring customers in.  Champions expected an even larger crowd since the game was in Indianapolis.

"Every little bit extra helps," she said.

Pizza parlors expected to be busy throughout the afternoon.  Taking orders for people who decided to host their own Super Bowl party.

"This is easily the busiest day of the year," Ryan Ziegler, the manager of Hungry Howie's Pizza on West Jefferson Blvd., said.  "It is a couple weeks of preparation, from the scheduling aspect, ordering enough food, and just getting ready for it."

Ziegler said Super Bowl Sunday was approximately three times busier than any other Sunday of the year.  His entire staff was expected to work Sunday to help with the extra orders.

"I think the ease of it," he said.  "It really hits the spot.  You don't really have to do anything.  You got something for everyone."

Another popular thing to do before the game was purchase a new television.

Sales were going on for several days at the Apple Glen Best Buy for people looking to improve their home theater.

"As we start to get into this time of year," Story Simpson, Customer Solutions Manager at Best Buy, said,  you're getting one, the Super Bowl, and two, you're going to have a new set of TVs that our coming out next year."

Simpson said new televisions for 2012 begin coming out in May. 

Simpson added he noticed people were looking for a new television for a Super Bowl party around the mid-2000s.

"It's everybody who didn't get a TV for Christmas," Simpson said.  "They now get to come in and get one for the Super Bowl.  Either if they are a fan of the teams that are in it, or if they aren't a fan of the teams in it, they can have everybody over and watch the commercials."

If you already had the perfect television, Simpson said the next popular item was improving the stereo system for your home theater.