SPOKANE, Wash. – Visit Spokane says Hoopfest brings in around $50 million in revenue each year for Spokane. For locally owned Longhorn BBQ, that’s as much as an entire new restaurant would make, with a lot less effort.
Every single day, dozens of workers help to run the Longhorn BBQ locations in Airway Heights and Spokane Valley, but the booth at Hoopfest can only fit 10 at a time.
That’s why it’s even more impressive that they serve about 700 people each day at Hoopfest, which is more than the 500-600 average number of people they serve per day at their location in Spokane Valley.
That’s also with a limited menu. They only serve 2-3 options at Hoopfest compared to the dozens at their physical locations.
With this level of production, Longhorn BBQ owner Erin Everhart says there was quite the learning curve their first time they had a booth at Hoopfest in the late 2000s.
“I probably did 10 runs on that Saturday,” said Everhart. “The previous owner kept calling. ‘I need more beef, I need more pork.’ It was a constant truck just moving back and forth to Hoopfest because it was so busy.”
Thankfully, now they have a better idea of how much product they need for Hoopfest weekend, and it will be a lot, considering they are expecting to make about $20,000 this weekend alone.
