Almost Home honored with Colts ‘Small Business Spotlight’
INDIANAPOLIS — Putnam County residents attending Sunday’s Colts game got a surprise when they opened up their programs or looked up at the jumbotron.
Almost Home Restaurant & Bar was honored with the Colts “Small Business Spotlight,” which is sponsored by Anthem.
Owner Gail Smith said that when the Colts first reached out to the Greencastle business about the honor, the first reaction was to assume it was some sort of scam.
However, it was indeed true that Almost Home was being honored and with it came two VIP tickets, a $1,000 prize and extra attention in the program, on the video board and on colts.com.
Greencastle resident Brooke Trissel was who nominated Almost Home, but didn’t know until Sunday that her entry had been selected.
In her role as Putnam County Hospital marketing and community relations director, Trissel has worked closely with Smith on a number of projects.
Smith, who will freely admit to being a bigger baseball fan than football, was nonetheless wowed by the seats, which were on the front row around the 20-yard line.
“I was just blown away by the whole thing,” Smith said.
And while she’s gotten plenty of congratulatory texts, calls and Facebook messages, Smith was happy to note who the first person from the community to congratulate her was.
“The first text I got when I got in the stadium was from Bill Dory,” Smith said. “He was there and he saw it in the program, and he congratulated me.
“It was cool that my first real message was from the mayor of Greencastle. Then my phone just blew up.”
In the end, Smith was just happy at how the community supports small businesses like hers.
“It was a great day, just a great day,” she said. “It makes me feel good that so many people support small businesses, especially coming off of Small Business Saturday.”