
Based on the tote board of Rocco's Jello Shot Challenge as of Thursday afternoon, LSU is blowing out the competition. Photo credit: Rocco's Pizza and Cantina via Facebook
As LSU gets set to do battle with Coastal Carolina for the national championship at the College World Series, there’s no doubt as to who’s running away with the title in the Jello Shot Challenge at Rocco’s Pizza and Cantina across the street from Charles Schwab Field.
Of the eight teams represented, Rocco’s has sold roughly three times the number of LSU Jello shots than that of the second place team.
LSU has been bolstered by a few heavy hitters, including Raising Cane’s CEO Todd Graves.
“Todd was here with Paul Skenes and Livvy Dunne, and they bought a couple trays, but nothing too crazy,” says Rocco’s manager Pat McEvoy. “And Paul actually bought a couple hundred and said just pass them out to Tiger fans throughout the bar, and so we did that.”
There seems to be a few people who are a tad jealous of Graves, however, including Baton Rouge injury lawyer Gordon McKernan — he’s buying 888 Jello shots every day LSU remains in the tournament.
(Yes, there’s a reason behind the 888 number; and, no, we’re not going to elaborate on it. McKernan can contact LRN’s sales department for further assistance in this matter.)
One might think that it would be easy for people like Graves and McKernan to buy thousands of dollars worth of Jello shots at a time to really drive up LSU’s numbers, but it doesn’t exactly work like that.
McEvoy points out that there are these pesky things called liquor laws that places like Rocco’s have to abide by.
“The liquor commission gets a little uneasy if we just hand someone 8,888 Jello shots or 6,000 Jello shots in a bar that holds 300 people,” says McEvoy.
The friendly competition — at least we think, and we hope, it’s a friendly competition — is not only driving up LSU’s numbers, but it’s also driving up Rocco’s numbers as well.
“Sales-wise, the biggest days where the days that Todd did 6,000 and Gordon did the 8,888,” McEvoy says. “(Baton Rouge real estate developer) Shane Morrison, who’s a big LSU guy too — he bought 6,001 just because he didn’t want Todd to have the record two days after Todd did it.”
One dollar of every Jello shot sold in the Jello Shot Challenge goes to the local food bank in each school’s local area, and 50 cents of each Jello shot sold goes to the Food Bank of Omaha.
For that reason, McEvoy says Graves, McKernan and Morrison are more than happy to part ways with their money, even if the Jello Shots they buy end up unconsumed.
“We’re like, ‘Hey, it’s unlikely that you’re going to get all 6,000 or 6,001 or 8,888 of your Jello shots passed out today, and we can’t carry them over to the next day, because everything bought that day has to be consumed that day,'” says McEvoy. “And they’re like, ‘We don’t care.’ The fact that it’s a charitable aspect is what they cared about.”
And since Rocco’s started the Jello Shot Challenge, they’ve raised a lot of money for food banks across the country.
“To date, we’ve raised over $350,000 through this thing,” McEvoy says.
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