SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Local shops and restaurants are prepping for the Kansas City Chiefs season opener tonight. 

That includes an increase in customers, leading to an increase in sales. 

“Sales pick up three or four weeks before the season starts,” said Tim Eakins with Fastbreak Sports. “Starting today, it’s a big day, people have been coming in. T-shirts, hats, jerseys we don’t [sell] a lot of, but it’s a lot of the other stuff, it’s the decorating stuff, stuff for the room, stuff for their man cave, that type of stuff.” 

Eakins says they won’t close early with the increase, despite excitement for kickoff. 

“We want to stay open, especially to the last minute because we have people running in right before they are, you know, heading to the sports bar or whatever to grab a shirt or a hat or whatever,” Eakins said.  

Speaking of sports bars, David Bauer, isn’t just preparing his flagship restaurant, Coyotes, for tonight, but now Harbells in downtown Springfield.  

“What we do is we get our dressings caught up because we make all our own dressings, then we [make] touchdown shots,” Bauer said. “We’ll [make] about 400 of those and then we’ll do probably about 600 or 700 containers of ranch or blue cheese, cut celery, prep up all our wings. We’ll probably sell [around] 25 cases on wings, 25 times 400 [wings]. You know, it adds up.” 

Bauer’s had his hand in almost everything Chiefs-related in the Springfield area. 

“I’m lucky enough [the Chiefs] sent me the jersey with Springfield on [the back],” Bauer said. “I’m pretty proud about that. We have a great relationship and [it’s] growing with the coming down and doing the Lombardi Trophy down here.” 

Bauer was part of the group that helped bring the Super Bowl trophy to Springfield this summer. 

Both Bauer and Eakins say, despite a potentially sidelined Travis Kelce and contract holdout Chris Jones absent from tonight’s opener, they’re confident in the Chiefs this year.  

“The Chiefs are great, and they always find a way. You’ve got Andy Reid. That’s about all you need, right?” Eakins said.  

“There’s going to be more and more exciting things happening when the Chiefs win the Super Bowl this year,” Bauer said. 

OzarksFirst asked Bauer if that was a guarantee. 

“Yeah, that’s good. I think that’s a guarantee,” Bauer replied with a smirk.