The new Arby’s restaurant attached to the Love’s Travel Stop, 1199 McNutt St., Herculaneum was not yet open to the general public this morning, Nov. 3, when the restaurant fed Herculaneum High School’s cross country runners headed to the state cross country meet.
The Arby’s is not set to open to the general public until the morning of Monday, Nov. 6. The Love’s Travel Stop opened Nov. 2.
The Blackcat boys and girls squads both are sending multiple cross country athletes to state and Arby’s extended an invitation to the school to give free meals to the athletes and coaches before they began their ride to Columbia for the state meet, which will be held Saturday, Nov. 4. Herculaneum competes in class 3.
Kyle Davis, head coach of both the boys and girls Blackcat squads, said he appreciated Arby’s making the gesture of feeding the runners. The group arrived at the restaurant about 10:45 a.m.
“This is a new experience for us,” Davis said of the meals. “I guess it’s a soft opening. We are very grateful Arby’s is doing this for us.
“We’ve got 13 boys and nine girls going to state. The top seven of each team compete tomorrow (Nov. 4). The boys’ race is at 9 a.m. and the girls’ race is 9:45 a.m.”
Including coaches, 28 from the Blackcat contingent received the meals.
He said Arby’s management put no restrictions on what the Blackcats could order.
“They said ‘have anything on the menu,’” Davis said.
Senior Sam Vaughn thanked Arby’s, but added he was not going to make an extravagant order.
“It’s really cool, just really cool we could come here to eat,” Vaughn said. “We appreciate it.
“I’ll probably just get something healthy.”