ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607190060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HOT SPRINGS
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
NOTE: below
PEPSI'S MANAGERS , who were in town for a meeting, made sure Hot Springs residents knew that the company was not out of the cola wars.
Folks in this mountain resort town who depend on Coke for their smiles were having a hard time last week.
The cola wars, it seems, had come to the Allegheny Highlands.
While the Coca Cola company, a major sponsor for this year's Olympics, was laying siege to "Hotlanta," PepsiCo took Hot Springs.
About 850 senior managers for the massive conglomerate - which owns not only Pepsi, but Frito Lay, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken - booked the entire Homestead hotel for their annual meeting and made every effort to obliterate all signs of the enemy inside the 517-room hotel and out.
It was as if the soda giant's bigwigs would go blind at the sight of a Coke can.
They didn't airlift in a Taco Bell, exactly, but the damage from their logo-lobbing troops was still plenty evident.
"Pepsi machines were springing up just like weeds," said David Bradley, owner of the Country Cafe on U.S. 220 just south of town. "Buy Pepsi, Get Stuff" banners suddenly flapped from the roofs of convenience stores on the highway from Roanoke all the way to Bath County.
The big Coke sign on the front of the Cascades Market was plastered over with white butcher paper and tape. The Pepsi people also tacked up shiny new tin Pepsi signs, shaped like bottle caps and old returnable Pepsi bottles. The signs were still there Thursday.
A clerk at the store, who wouldn't give her name, said the store tried for a long time to get a Frito Lay products rack in the store, but was turned down because the distributor in Covington couldn't handle the extra workload. But when PepsiCo came to town, they got a rack full of Doritos in a hurry.
The Duck Inn Deli & Market, right across the street from The Homestead, got a new Pepsi clock.All the Coke products were pushed to the back of the store. Though the store was full of Pepsi and Dr Pepper, workers deposited a Pepsi machine on the sidewalk out front.
Across the way at the Hot Springs Pharmacy, they don't even sell soft drinks since closing their fountain 20 years ago. But now they've got a window full of Pepsi's new promotional "stuff" - hats, beach chairs, swimming trunks, bags.
Each proprietor gave permission for the changes, but when it comes to guests of The Homestead, well, let's say the hotel casts a long and imposing shadow in this little town.
"If anyone is here staying at The Homestead and they need something," said Jack Williams, owner of the pharmacy, "we go the extra mile for them. The Homestead is all we have, and I don't want to leave town."
"I'm not sure I feel that way," said Bradley at the Country Cafe. His chef turned down a Frito Lay display rack, but the PepsiCo folks wouldn't take "no" for an answer at first.
"I don't want to say it was pressure," Bradley said, "but they were definitely salesmen."
But for all the effort to wipe Coca Cola off the face of Bath County, the PepsiCo managers barely patronized any business outside the hotel.
"They all stayed up at the hotel and played golf," said Nancy Keyser, a clerk at the Duck Inn.
That could be because they hardly had to venture more than a few feet to find a Pepsi inside the hotel. Hot Springs was still buzzing with talk of how workers wheeled in a platoon of Pepsi machines early last week.
Asked Thursday where the nearest Pepsi machine was, one rank-and-file hotel worker looked surprised.
"Oh," she said, "they took all of the Pepsi machines out of here Sunday."
That's the day the Pepsi people checked out. Is there a Coke machine then? Nope. There usually aren't any drink machines in the hotel.
By Thursday afternoon, Coke had regained the ground it lost. A Diet Coke truck was parked at the loading dock, and one board room had a table covered with cans of Coke and Sprite.
Citing the confidentiality of guests of the private resort, hotel Marketing Director Mary Sanders said the hotel would not comment on PepsiCo's visit, even to confirm when they were there.
No one at PepsiCo was available to comment.
The Coca Cola people were not available, either, but if what the clerk at the Cascades Market says is any indication, they weren't too worried about their rival's short-lived coup.
``They said, `Aw, let 'em have their glory for a week.'''
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB