Pensacola Beach sees 'monster' spring break season. What's driving the bigger crowd?

If you have a beach, they will come.

If the beach is a good beach, they will come in droves.

And this year's spring break crowds hit Pensacola Beach in a big way, bringing a much needed boom to local businesses.

"I was speaking with businesses earlier, and they were excited to see the people," Escambia County Commissioner Robert Bender, whose District 4 encompasses Pensacola Beach, told the News Journal on Thursday. "You had your winter crowd, and then overnight, it seems like it got busy. They were loving seeing all the people. If you're at the beach now, you can see how busy it is. It's like it's a summer day out here right now."

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Escambia County officials provided preliminary data that suggests the turnout this spring break season will easily eclipse the 2020 and 2021 seasons, both of which occurred under the cloud of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Looking at data for mid-March, many more vehicles have already passed over the Bob Sikes Toll Bridge to Pensacola Beach this season compared to the past two years, according to Escambia County spokeswoman Andie Gibson.

This year, between March 10 and Thursday, 112,626 vehicles were recorded driving through the Bob Sikes Toll Bridge's toll booth stations.

During last year's spring break season, county officials only recorded 71,445 vehicles moving through the toll booths between March 15 and March 21.

The prior year, 81,369 vehicles passed over the bridge and into Pensacola Beach between March 16, 2020, and March 22, 2020.

"I think many people are looking for that first vacation after COVID, and sometimes for lot of them, we're closest beach or just the first beach that they always choose to come to," Bender said. "I think with the gas prices, people are going to be looking at what's closer, and of course, we have the product that can deliver to their needs."

Pensacola Beach businesses welcome big crowds with open arms

The recent crowds were a welcome sight for the Pensacola Beach business community, many of whom are still feeling the lasting economic effects of the pandemic and the temporary closure of the Three Mile Bridge prompted by damage from loose construction barges during Hurricane Sally in 2020.

Richard Abercrombie, guest services manager for Crabs restaurant, said business on the beach is definitely up.

"Everything is great," he told the News Journal on Thursday. "Last year was good, but think about this. Summer ended last season, and we had a pretty good off season, and then, we only had like a month of down time because then in February, it started picking back and led into this monster spring break.

"So, we're having huge numbers, and of course, we have a huge footprint in the community because we're a part of McGuire's Irish Pub and Flounders so people know we're going to be here, we're going to be staffed up."

The number of people dining at Crabs began to soar starting about March 1, and while Abercrombie could not speak to other local restaurants' business, he did note that he'd heard beach hotels were doing particularly well this spring break.

"I know that the occupancies have been full," he said. "That's the type of thing I focus on, and I'll staff accordingly. I can tell you we have a lot of happy employees. Money is circulating in the kitchen and in the back, and I think that's exciting for them too."

'Everybody is so happy to be out and about that they are on good behavior'

It was hard to finding parking in Casino Beach's main parking lot Thursday afternoon, and vehicles circled the lot ready to pounce on any spot that came available.

Natalie Marburger, 19, of Pittsburgh, and Scott Modelski, 19, of Chicago, both sophomores at the University of Alabama, said it took them 45 minutes to park before they had a chance to head toward the water.

Sitting a short distance away from them, Hailey Brown, 25, of Pensacola, said it was the perfect spring break day at Pensacola Beach.

"If I was in Fort Lauderdale right now, it's so crowded, people would be sitting on top of us," Brown said, noting that there were "just the right" amount of people on the beach.

"Everybody is so happy to be out and about that they are on good behavior," Brown continued, referring to the stereotype that college students of spring break often misbehave. "They don't want to mess up and have to go off the beach and back inside."

A little bit farther down the sand sat five freshmen nursing students who made the 10-hour drive from Saint Louis University to be at Pensacola Beach.

Emilia Bosaia, 19, Ally Holtebeck, 18, Ella Macvane, 18, Riley Hanke, 18, and Jenna Scarborough, 19, all said their week-long trip had been a blast, despite some social drama in their total group of 12.

"We were actually just now sitting in a circle and all going around saying, like, imagine if we were asked to give one word to describe the trip. We were all like: shocking, eventful," Holfebeck said.

"Crazy," Hanke added.

Still, the group said they'd had a lot of fun on the beaches and explored two "really pretty" nearby state parks.

All in all, things were good at the beach for both visitors and businesses.

"I don't have the latest numbers yet, but I do know that even going back to the (Blue Angels) air show in November that things are well with the restaurants and businesses out here," Bender said. "They are of course still trying to recover from Hurricane Sally and the bridge being out, but I would say that they are well on their way to recovery. Weeks like this week definitely help."

Colin Warren-Hicks can be reached at colinwarrenhicks@pnj.com or 850-435-8680.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola Beach businesses experiencing big spring break season