Weekend at Grossinger's

Grossinger’s Resort.

Grossinger’s Resort.

Grossinger’s Resort.

Did I mention -- GROSSINGER’S RESORT.

Those two words changed my blog.

For at least a day.

You see Sunday I wrote a blog about my recent trip to Cooperstown.

And in that blog I mentioned that my father and I went to Grossingers Resort in upstate New York when I was 12.

Then I made the smooth, almost seamless transition to the trip I took with my 12-year old son last week to Cooperstown.

In upstate New York.

Those are the types of segues that win Pulitzer Prizes people.

But what does this have to do with my blog.

Well, here’s what.

Monday night I was watching Goldmember in the basement with my kids.

At some point between Mike Myers costume changes I picked up my iPhone and clicked on sitemeter.com.

That’s the software that shows me who is reading my blog at that exact second.

(It’s so addicting.)

Well as soon as it loaded, I immediately noticed something abnormal.

The number of eyeballs on the blog had gone bonkers.

Now when I say bonkers, I’m not talking youtube bonkers.

Or even perezhilton bonkers.

Sir Bacon is still a local mom and pop operation.

But at 10:30pm ET on Monday night, I had dozens of readers on my website.

At a time when on some nights I don’t even have one.

Readers from Port Saint Lucie, Florida.

Amarillo, Texas.

Mattawa, Washington.

Bixby, Oklahoma.

Warrenton, Virginia.

And the Czech Republic.

And MANY others.

So I put on my Inspector Clouseau hat to get some answers.

That’s what journalists do.

Well it turns out every single one of those readers had found Sir Bacon from the same exact place.

The yahoo search engine.

By searching for the same exact words.

Grossinger’s.

and

Resort.

I hear Grossinger’s is huge in the Czech Republic.

I did some snooping to see if Grossinger’s was in the news last week.

Nothing.

My friend said maybe Howard Stern mentioned Grossinger’s on his show.

Nothing.

Maybe the return of Fear Factor is being shot at the Grossinger’s Resort.

Nothing.

Now the initial surge into sirbaconville certainly caught me off guard.

But what really blew me away was how it continued.

For the next day-and-a-half.

And during that time I had literally 20 times the amount of readers I usually get.

And 99% of the readers found me by searching for those same two magical words.

“Grossinger’s” and “Resort”.

Now the fact that hundreds of people -- from all over the world --were all searching for a resort in upstate New York at the same time is a little funny.

And the fact that they all stumbled across my blog by doing that search is a little bizarre.

But here’s where it gets flat out creepy.

Oliver Stoney if you will.

According to wikipedia, Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel closed its doors.

In 1986.

25 years ago!

(Cue the Halloween music.)

Now I’ve been writing this here blog for the last 18 months.

And I’ve been constantly blown away by how many people have found it.

And I thank every single one of you for doing so.

But it’s not like I’m advertising Sir Bacon on the Super Bowl.

This is a word of mouth thing.

And the fact that anybody has found me still blows me away.

But how is it that casually mentioning a hotel in my blog.

A hotel that closed its doors 25 years ago.

Can increase my audience by 20 times.

That makes no sense.

If it’s really that easy...

I’ll be writing a blog on Grossinger’s Resort every Monday.

The 1959 Edsel Ford every Tuesday.

My favorite M*A*S*H* episodes on Wednesdays.

I’ll have a million followers by Thursday, right?

Thank you Grossinger’s.

RIP.