Homecoming Weekend is a time to celebrate past, present and future Bobcats.

“It’s our busiest and most favorite time of the year; I dread it, but I look forward to it,” David Cornwell, owner of The J Bar, Courtside Pizza and North End Kitchen and Bar, said.

Operation times change for most businesses and the workday starts earlier compared to a normal Saturday. Paula Marsh, front-of-house manager of Jackie O’s, said they will open at noon instead of 4 p.m. on Saturday to accommodate for more business

Cornwell said that each of his three bars opens at 5:30 a.m. and is open all day until their normal closing time, 2 a.m.

"My cleaners basically have two hours to get three places back to functional."-David Cornwell

Staffing at the bars is the biggest challenge during the week because workers have an entire extra shift in the morning, Cornwell said.

“We try to staff up; we try to keep support staff on — the people doing food running, extra hosts, all that — so we have extra people on board,” said Marsh.

Marsh said for Jackie O’s that it is just business as usual and they will work to keep people coming in and make room for everyone.

Cornwell said his goal for the day is to get through it, keep his employees healthy, not run out of inventory and keep his customers safe.

With alums parading uptown, business revenue is expected to increase compared to other weekends.

“I always hope to go up 8%-10% but times are changing,” Cornwell said.

Cornwell said that his expenses increased and the extra revenue brought in compared to other years would only offset the difference.

Marsh said it's hard to tell how much revenue will increase due to how COVID-19 affected revenue in the past few years.

“We opened slowly and kept adding and adding and then this year, I believe there’s the biggest freshman class ever,” Marsh said.

The increase in incoming freshmen will bring in more revenue for restaurants like Jackie O’s, but Cornwell said he does not expect it will affect the bar scene.

“We won’t really see that making a monster effect for another year or so,” Cornwell said.

The City of Athens is also anticipating increased foot traffic uptown over the weekend and has already begun preparing for the parade to ensure the safety of citizens and students.

“The city will have additional police and fire staffing, along with some public works personnel, on duty throughout the day.”-Andrew Stone, Athens service safety director

One of the most attended events of Homecoming Weekend is the parade. The parade needs Court Street, Factory Street, Riverside Drive, Station Street, West Green Drive at Oxbow and Oxbow at the Central Food Kitchen, all to be shut down at 9 a.m. to support the parade route.

“The parking meters along the route are bagged with yellow ‘no parking bags’ at around 4 a.m. and all cars parked along the route can be towed if still parked in a spot any time after 6 a.m.,” Andrew Chiki, deputy service safety director, wrote in an email. “The parade route is a rolling closure with police officers stopping traffic at intersections along the route.”

A volunteer staff from Ohio University’s Campus Involvement Center will remove the meter bags as soon as the parade ends.

In reference to possible safety concerns, Stone said that the city will complete the same activities it does every day to ensure safety but will have more staff on duty because of how busy it will be.

By the time Homecoming arrives, the houses that have large parties have already received noise complaint warnings during previous weekends, so the city responds and will issue citations as needed, Stone said.

“I think this will be bigger than the past few years, both because OU is having a successful football season and we are out of the pandemic now,” Stone wrote in an email. “It promises to be a great weekend for Athens.”