LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. — Lancaster County’s tourism season unofficially starts on March 10, when Sight & Sound Theatre opens its latest show. The show is the highlight of many organized tours through the area.
With barely more than a month before the season begins, the area is down more than 1,000 seats at Pennsylvania Dutch-style restaurants since this time last year.
Good ‘N Plenty in East Lampeter Twp. closed in early 2022, taking 600 restaurant seats out of service.
A fire on Jan. 10 completely destroyed the Hershey Farm restaurant, also in East Lampeter Twp. The restaurant is being rebuilt, but in the meantime, 450 restaurant seats are unavailable.
Now tour groups are scrambling to book restaurants for their busloads of hungry tourists.
Other area restaurants are expecting additional tour bus requests, but some are already near capacity.
Shady Maple Smorgasbord in East Earl Twp. is a massive restaurant—seating up to 1,600 at a time. But co-CEO Phil Weaver is already telling buses he can’t guarantee a spot on Saturdays, when the restaurant averages 7,000 diners.
“It is a real concern on the Route 30 corridor there: where are these buses going to go?” Weaver said. “I have to tell them I give them some other options where they can go. I can’t do anything about it. I have no room.”
Compounding the problem is a tight labor market. Shady Maple could seat 700 more, but can’t open its additional buffet line because of hiring difficulties.
“That takes at least 12 to 15 people to open up that area and right now I’m at the point where I have barely enough to do my regular smorgasbord on a Saturday,” Weaver said.
Tourism is a major driver of the Lancaster County economy. It draws 9 million visitors and $3 billion in economic impact each year.
According to Discover Lancaster, those numbers have increased every year since the pandemic and are expected to continue growing.
“Leisure travel has come back with a vengeance. That does include bus travel that has come along this past year. So we anticipate ’23 to be a solid year,” said Discover Lancaster’s Joel Cliff.
Cliff is helping smaller restaurants coordinator to absorb some of the extra diners this season.
“I think everybody is trying, even though they had arrangements themselves, to find additional capacity that they might be able to share this out for however long it goes,” he said.
Hershey Farm is rebuilding its restaurant and gift store. A release posted online said the Hershey Farm hotel will reopen in March, and will be serving breakfast.