Jacksonville Beach restaurant TacoLu was recognized Oct. 2 at the PGA’s Web.com Tour Championship in Atlantic Beach as the Web.com Small Business of the Tournament Award winner.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said TacoLu owner Don Nicol. “I have a huge amount of appreciation. I never thought this crazy ride would be this big and this long. We hoped it would be in the beginning. It’s just been one of those things where every day I get up and it’s gotten better and better.”
Each year, Web.com presents the award to a business that supports the tournament and its local community. Eligible businesses must be locally based where the annual tournament is being held.
Nicol’s restaurant has offered fish tacos, tequila, mezcal and other assorted Mexican eats and drinks since 2008. The outlet, which is described by Nicol as a business that “took on a life of its own” after a few years, is located on Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville.
“This is our 10th year,” he said. “To be recognized for that at this stage of the game is incredible for me.:
According to Web.com’s Sports Marketing Manager Hannah Hawkins, the organization offers small business owners a number of services to help them grow, such as website development and SEO recognition. Hawkins revealed that the Small Business of the Tournament award winner will be eligible to compete for the overall Small Business of the Tour award.
“Each tournament winner is put into a contest to be Web.com’s Small Business of the Tour, which will be an open voting process,” she said. “We’re creating a website. Anyone can go online and vote for their favorite business.”
The Small Business of the Tour award will grant the winner $25,000 worth of online marketing services from Web.com.
“It [the services] might be a new website, it may be help with Facebook advertising, paid search … We’ll do a consultation to determine what that is,” Hawkins said.
TacoLu won the Small Business of the Tournament award for helping first responders get into the Web.com tournament for free in recognition of their post-Hurricane Irma cleanup efforts. Hawkins also revealed that TacoLu has been a “huge supporter” of the championship.
Nicol’s next goal is to win the overall tour award by amassing as many votes as possible, but the TacoLu owner plans on savoring his restaurant’s latest accolade first.
