The Blue Angels Pensacola Beach Air Show is an annual celebration that draws thousands to the beach to enjoy fun in the sun and to watch some of the best pilots on the planet show their skill.
The air show is always a good time, but the same can’t necessarily be said of getting there and back. Many attendees leave well before the sun rises to secure a parking space in the Casino Beach parking lot, and those who don’t can expect to spend a while circling parking lots looking for a vacant space. Traffic can be bumper-to-bumper, particularly when everyone is leaving the beach after the show.
The commute can be even more stressful if you’re someone who is just trying to get to work on time or go home after a long shift.
“Last year, I get stuck in the traffic afterward, and me and my friend had to go to Alvin’s to buy swimsuits because we were like, ‘I’m so done with the traffic’ … we just went swimming until it was all gone,” said McKenzie Zolnik, a server for The Dock.
The show anchors a big business weekend for service industry workers on Pensacola Beach, as well as creates a logistical nightmare because of the traffic-dense commute to work each morning. Servers, bartenders, managers and hosts who work at beach restaurants and bars often go to extreme lengths to make Blue Angels weekend a success each year.
Cooper Wright, who works at the red-umbrella-lined, multi-tiered waterfront restaurant Crabs on the Beach, is one of many people who work multiple jobs on the beach. Since income can be somewhat inconsistent and fluctuate with the season, many people hold onto two or three jobs that they rotate through to fill in the gaps.
Last year, Wright remembers working the day shift serving on the beach on Friday, followed by a night shift bartending back in Pensacola, then booking it back to the beach in the wee hours of Saturday morning to try to catch a few hours of shut-eye.
“When I got off work at the bar, I drove straight back down to the beach, walked the 2 miles, ‘cause they closed the parking lot at like 3 a.m. after my shift … I hammocked underneath the pier,” Wright said.
After those few, blissful hours of swaying with the sound of the Gulf waves soothing him to sleep, he shotgunned a Red Bull and reported back to Crabs for duty.
While the air show days are long, it helps to lean into them, with Wright choosing to make his own fun one year by dressing up in aviator sunglasses and serving guests with a “Maverick” name tag while Top Gun tunes played in the background.
Beach employees work smarter, not harder, during the air show
Visitors will start packing the beach as early as Wednesday to catch a flyover during Breakfast with the Blues and to watch the practice show Thursday and dress rehearsal on Friday, all leading up to the main event on Saturday, making for back-to-back packed days and nights.
For Shaggy’s employees, the Blue Angels motto has become to work smarter, not harder.
The business has worked out a parking space swap agreement with St. Ann Catholic Parish in Gulf Breeze. Shaggy’s employees park their individual vehicles at the church and then pile into one or two big trucks and ride over together. In return, Shaggy’s reserves a few prime parking spots in its parking lot for St. Ann’s members.
The Shaggy’s team doesn’t start its day without stopping for a team breakfast to fuel up, which Kailee Steede, a guest specialist and server at Shaggy’s, considers one of her favorite weekend traditions.
“We’ll do like Waffle House. This year we’re doing First Watch, so we’re super excited about that. That’s a tradition, I’d say, is going to get breakfast with the gang before,” she said.
Even if you solve your morning commute, leaving after your day shift wraps is another story. For the employees who aren’t staying the night on the beach, they’ve come to accept that they might be stuck there for a while.
Zolnik, The Dock server who got stuck in traffic last year and just went swimming, is opting to just get a hotel room on the beach this year.
Some bar regulars will offer their beach condos to employees to make their weekend commute easier, according to Sandshaker General Manager Joe Campbell.
Blue Angels weekend is exceptionally busy, and the lounge goes through more Bushwackers in one weekend alone than it would in an entire month, according to Campbell. Even though customers can expect to wait a while for a waterfront table or to squeeze in and order a drink at the bar, customers are noticeably cheerful and don’t seem to mind too much. They’re there to see their beloved Blues.
“Everyone’s like real excited, especially when they fly though the practice run, they all get excited and everyone’s drinking, so they’re all happy. It’s a really good weekend,” Zolnik said.
For many of the employees, the customers’ reactions are their favorite part, even if the show is something they’ve seen a million times over.
“I think one of my favorite things is just watching people’s reactions when they fly over, because they fly right over our building, and it’s super loud and fun,” Wright, the Crabs on the Beach employee, said. “I’m used to it at this point, but I love seeing everyone’s reactions like they’re jumping and just going crazy, and it’s awesome.”
Sometimes, workers are even able to slip out to the patio for a sacred moment of peace to watch the Blues themselves.
“Actually being able to take time to stop everything, and then we’ll all like go out on the balcony right here, and they just fly over us,” said Steede, of Shaggy’s. “That’s like amazing being able to see that. It’s like the best view in the house and you’re getting paid while you do it so you can’t even complain, it’s amazing.”
Campbell said the weekend is a major team effort, and it’s special to be part of something so influential to the Pensacola community. They don’t do it all for the reward (though the frequent tips are good and when the Blue Angels find their way into the Sandshaker after the show, it’s definitely a treat). But they’re not in it for the glory.
“They (customers) all come over and tell the stories, and how many times they’ve seen the Blue Angels, and all the fantastic things they saw today,” Campbell said. “It never, ever gets old.”
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Think Blue Angels traffic is rough for you? Imagine getting to and from work
Reporting by Brittany Misencik, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Brittany Misencik, Pensacola News Journal | USA TODAY Network
