Omaha restaurant owners use “Jello Shot Challenge” as a way to give back

Omaha restaurant owners use jello shot challenge as a way to give back

OMAHA, Neb. (KLKN) – Fans know where they’re headed when they get to Omaha for the Men’s College World Series.

“We come here for the opportunity to take a jello shot and put our name on the board, or not our name, our number,” Ole Miss fan Greg McKissick said.

Rocco’s Pizza and Cantina’s become a right of passage for fans as a place to hang out at during the series.

In 2019, Roccos’s started the “Jello Shot Challenge,” where all eight team names are written on a white board behind the bar and for every fan that comes in and orders a jello shot, the owners tally up the purchased shots and add them to the board.

But this year, the familiar challenge is different.

Social media’s played a huge role in Rocco’s increase in attention and sales.

Their twitter page “CWS Jello Shot Challenge” has over 16,ooo followers and is growing by the day.

“We’ve been excited about coming to Omaha for a long time and social media has made Rocco’s blow up,” McKissick said. “So obviously everybody from Ole Miss is here buying Jello Shots and we’re like, well, that’s on the bucket list!”

So this year owners Kevin and Bonnie Culjat decided to give back in a way that helps the fans and the schools of the teams playing.

“People started buying them 100 at a time, 150, 1000 at a time,” Culjat said. “My wife and I sat down and said you know, this has gotten a lot bigger than just a fun thing to do for the series. That’s when we decided to take two dollars off every jello shot and say listen, we’re gonna donate it to each school. And then after that if you keep drinking, we’ll keep donating, it’s been a wonderful thing.”

Rocco’s makes a big chunk of their annual income during the CWS and felt the implications from the pandemic on business, so Culjat says he is thankful for the increase in customers.

“Everyday people are walking up to us saying what a good time they’re having and thanking us for what we’re doing, you know we survived COVID by the skin of our teeth and this allows us to keep going as a small business,” Culjat said.

For now, Rocco’s will continue to mark tallies on the board for every fan who buys a shot until a winner is crowned.

“I really hope the series goes to three games,” Culjat said. “And whoever wins its going to be wonderful, but it’s gonna be real hard to catch Ole Miss in the Jello challenge. I think they’re over 12,000 shots right now and as you can see they’re pretty fired up to keep going.”