Photos by Andy Tullis / The BulletinA crowd of baseball fans line up for $2 food and drink specials at the Bend Elks baseball game at Genna Stadium in Bend last Tuesday.

Ten or so years since its inception, what was once commonly known as Tightwad Tuesday has evolved into the place to be on a summer Tuesday evening in Bend. On this particular Tuesday evening, I have alongside me 2,349 witnesses who will verify that evolution.

In the mid-2000s, when locals or out-of-towners sought a cheap Tuesday night out in Central Oregon, they flocked to Vince Genna Stadium to take in a Bend Elks baseball game.

Tuesday night crowds typically were sparse, recalls Jim Richards, who founded the Elks in 2000 and has been the team’s owner and general manager ever since.

In the Elks’ first years as a summer collegiate baseball club, drawing fans to midweek games was often a challenge.

Snap to the first Tuesday home game of the Elks’ 2014 season. Tuesdays are now promoted as “$2 Tuesdays.” It is 90 degrees on the first day of July. A cloudless cobalt sky stretches above as the sun begins to sink toward the Cascade mountains to the west. More than 2,300 baseball fans are packed into Genna Stadium to watch the Elks take on the Kelowna Falcons in West Coast League action.

It is a midweek game. And like all other $2 Tuesday games here, it is the one of the Elks’ biggest nights of the season at the gate.

“It’s an institution now,” Richards says of the wildly popular promotion. “It took us a few years to get the fans acclimated to it. For the past five or six years, if we can’t put 2,000 to 2,500 people in the stands on a $2 Tuesday, it must be raining outside.”

Not on this Tuesday. Not on this scorcher of a July evening that, despite the heat, could not keep fans from filing into the stadium and enjoying the $2 hot dogs, soft drinks and, for the adults, 12-ounce beers.

“Oh, it’s great. It’s great for the kids, it’s great for the families,” says 41-year-old Bend resident Dave McNulty. “I’ve got a family of five, so it makes a huge difference for us to be here.”

“It’s not just the price that draws folks to a $2 Tuesday,” Richards notes. “It’s the boisterous crowd. It’s the environment. It’s the atmosphere. The players love playing in front of big crowds. There’s no bigger crowds than our Tuesday crowds. It’s not just a value drive. It’s that this is the best place to be in Bend on Tuesdays. That’s been our selling point for the last 10 years.”

The ambience at Genna is unmatched on a Tuesday. But, McNulty emphasizes, the discounted prices are pretty ideal for a family.

“For a family of five, it makes a big difference,” McNulty says, adding that opting for an Elks game with his wife and kids on this July evening was a “no-brainer.”

“Two-dollar Tuesdays are wild. No night is the same,” says Andrea Thompson, who has worked for the Elks for 10 years and on this night is helping with concessions in the beer garden. “They (the Elks) have promotions — Cap Night, free hot dogs, Ice Cream Night — but $2 Tuesdays, it’s just fun.”

Tuesdays eventually became the hot ticket for Elks games, as Richards recalls his team consistently drawing 2,500 fans to every Tuesday home game. But for the Elks’ 2011 season, a new promotion — Free Kids Wednesday (children age 12 and younger are admitted free when accompanied by an adult) — was established to, as Richards puts it, “drive some of that ‘Tightwad’ traffic from Tuesdays to Wednesdays” and increase Wednesday game attendance while easing the Tuesday overcrowding. Now, Richards says, the Elks typically average 1,500 fans for Wednesday games (they drew 1,329 last week), and they still average more than 2,000 fans on $2 Tuesdays.

Despite the discounted admission and concession items, Tuesdays have developed into one of the Bend Elks’ better revenue nights. What is taken in on $2 Tuesdays, Richards points out, rivals the take on other promotional nights.

“We sell more $5 (microbrews) on $2 beer night (Tuesdays) than any other night of the week,” Richards says. He adds that more barbecue meals are sold on Tuesday nights — costing as much as $10.95 each — than on any other night of the week “even though we’re selling $2 hot dogs.”

“That in itself,” the Elks’ owner continues, “tells you that it’s not just the tightwads that are coming here.”

“It’s one of the few nights I’ll actually enjoy a Bud Light,” I overhear one Elks fan telling another, referring to the brand of beer that is discounted on $2 Tuesdays. But $2 Tuesdays are not about the cheap beer. “That’s why we don’t call it $2 beer night,” Richards says. “It’s $2 Tuesdays.”

Rather, $2 Tuesdays are about the environment. It is an atmosphere that teams throughout the league are looking to mirror. And for good reason, as the Elks have led the league in attendance each of the last three summers — including last season’s draw of more than 40,000 fans in 26 home games.

“I can tell you that almost every other team in the league looks at what the Bend Elks do, from the $2 Tuesday to the strikeout batter to the chicken dance,” Richards says. We are the benchmark for all other teams in the league to emulate.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0307, glucas@bendbulletin.com