Hayward Field is one of the most historic track and field venues in the world, hosting more USA Olympic Track and Field trials and NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships than any other stadium.

Another stamp on Hayward Field’s historical value will be added on July 15 when it hosts the World Athletics Championships, the first United States venue to do so.

It will be an extremely busy 10 days in Eugene. With a city population of about 170,000, organizers of the event expect 200,000 visitors to come to Oregon from over 200 different countries in the time span of the championships. Organizers of the championships are expecting 20,000 to 25,000 visitors per day at Hayward Field.
With the brief increase in population due to the historic athletic event about to take place, local businesses near Hayward are expecting a huge boost in business, attending to all the visiting athletes and spectators.

Only a block from Hayward Field, the stretch of restaurants on 19th and Agate Street: 19th include Agate Alley Bistro, Studio One Cafe, McMenamins, Prince Pucklers Ice Cream, Hey Neighbor Pizza House and Sweet Life Patisserie, will be the hot spot of the crowd.

In the past year and a half, Hayward Field hosted a plethora of track and field events including the NCAA championships and the trials for the Tokyo Olympics. With these events causing more foot traffic around these restaurants on 19th, they seem to be prepared for the Worlds in July.

“I don’t know if it will be busier than the trials or not; it’s going to kind of be a trial by error,” Lance Schendul, manager at Prince Puckler’s Ice Cream, said. “I think we’ll be probably pretty busy, especially before the meets, and then when the meet gets out, you’ll get all the influx of people mostly.”

In a business that peaks in the hot weather, Prince Pucklers Ice Cream will likely be an attractive spot for the athletes and other visitors. While Schendul is confident in the business’s ability to handle increased foot traffic, the world championships bring in a new sort of business experience.

“With some of the new customers, it’s just a different experience,” Schendul said. “Everybody wants to ask me questions about the different types of ice creams and hopefully we’ll be doing samples by then so we can help that out, but I mean it’s just a different vibe.”

In what could be viewed as a possibly overwhelming week for the businesses near the track, the companies are ready for the challenge.

“We get to see exactly what we were expecting to see and that is a huge bump on those weekends,” Tony Schmidt, manager at Agate Alley Bistro said.

It’s nothing out of the ordinary for the Agate Street restaurants to have a packed house. Since COVID-19 restrictions have died down, Schmidt said more people are out, noting that the last two years have been the busiest in Agate Alley’s 14-year existence.

There are also fewer food options due to the companies that had to unfortunately shut down during the pandemic.

“People are just going out and with restaurants that closed during COVID and haven’t reopened, the accessibility seems to be a little bit less than it once was and our proximity from the stadium does not hurt either,” Schmidt said.

Even though these businesses thrive on being busy, adjustments and strategies will be put in place to pace things more during the Worlds that kick off on July 15.

Catherine Reinhart, co-owner of Sweet Life Patisserie, said how offering a grab ‘n’ go iced coffee drink like cold brew will help keep the line down and business running smoothly.

“We’ll definitely be having more staff available and we’ll definitely be upping the amount of products that we bring to that location,” Reinhart said. “We’ll probably be trying to think of some other ways to make it really easy to get people through the line really quickly.”

Having Hayward Field in such close proximity to these businesses presents a huge opportunity when events happen, but it also introduces a challenge in how to handle the foot traffic.

With about 200,000 people pouring into Eugene from over 200 different countries, the businesses on 19th and Agate will be booming while getting the chance to serve people from all around the world.