The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Bristol, Virginia isn’t expected to open for at least two years. But the company already is lining up local vendors they met at a vendor fair event in October 2020.
For example, Karen Hester, owner of Southern Churn on State Street, said, “Hard Rock Casino is actually our biggest customer that we’re packaging fudge for now. That goes to their facility in Florida, and they sell it like this, under the Southern Churn label, showing that it was made right here in Bristol, Virginia. We were so excited to partner and do business with them.”
Hester said an initial shipment of fudge she sent to the Florida facility in December sold out within a week. She’s now selling 10 different flavors of fudge at Hard Rock’s property in Tampa. “We’ve shipped out product to them four times. That’s exciting news for a small business,” she said.
Hard Rock executives also discovered Fred Sexton’s Bristol Artisan Company. Sexton made customized signs shaped like a poker chip and dice with ‘Bristol” spelled out inside, and showed them to Hard Rock officials at the vendor fair. “I think maybe that got some attention,” he said.
Now Hard Rock has asked Sexton to design stainless steel napkin holders that will be used at the Hard Rock Northern Indiana in Gary. “If I do a good enough job on this, I hope I get the opportunity to make them for Bristol,” he said. He commissioned another local vendor in Abingdon to produce the napkin holders, thereby passing on a business opportunity to another local company.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the goal of having millions of dollars infused into our economy because of the Hard Rock Casino and Resort, it’s going to happen, very quickly,” Sexton said.
