With the arrival of football season, one of the newest establishments on campus, Legends of Notre Dame, held its doors wide open to the Irish faithful, providing a concert/dance club on Friday night and a game watch Saturday afternoon.
When asked how the restaurant/club did over the weekend, manager Larry Briggs said that expectations were met but declined to provide specific figures.
"I would say that it met our expectations, although we are certainly looking at evolving over the course of the year, football weekends and [non-football weekends]," Briggs said.
According to Briggs, Legends will have to make sure that it can change and keep improving itself to meet the market, rather than relying merely on its prime location near the Stadium and advertising targeted at Notre Dame students and fans.
"It was extremely busy, but we're evolving every day and kind of running it as we go," Briggs said. "We'll see what works in the market and go from there."
Briggs also said the restaurant would grow into its own over time. The restaurant was doing a lot of business, but there are still areas that staff and management need to look at for continued improvement.
"There's ... a big learning curve, but with having the staff better trained, being able to better handle crowds and the like, we will continue to improve," Briggs said.
Program coordinator Jonathan Jorissen expressed many of the same views, while at the same time noting the large numbers that came to Legends for various reasons.
"We had a lot of people come through - a lot of alumni wanting to check out the new place - and were very busy all day Friday," Jorissen said. "We had a great turnout, as well, to watch the game."
Jorissen did leave room for improvement, however, noting at least one event that was not as well-attended as organizers might have hoped.
Changes will happen in the programming, as well as in the restaurant, on the planning level, Jorissen said.
"We weren't at max capacity for the band Friday night, and we're working on the logistics of programming on football weekends. We're looking at some different options," Jorissen said. "One of those is having a classic Notre Dame football game watch on Friday afternoons."
Despite having, to some extent, less-than-perfect results, the staff of Legends is happy with the way things are going and hope to continue to improve. In fact, evolving and improving to become even better is one of the central ideas of the restaurant/club right now, the staff said.
"We're excited. Everything went very smoothly, and we were very pleased. Hopefully, over time, more people will become aware that Legends exists, [and we will] improve our programming, and Legends will be even better," Jorissen said.
