{"id":2085,"date":"2015-12-10T07:34:27","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T12:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2085"},"modified":"2015-12-10T07:34:27","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T12:34:27","slug":"berkeley-springs-seven-days-a-week-with-oscar-robles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2085","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley Springs Seven Days a Week with Oscar Robles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oscar Robles was traveling with a friend from Virginia to Seattle, Washington in 1999 when a tire on his car went flat in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/C3owM8Lgtgo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The then Mayor of the Town of Bath &#8212; Susan Webster &#8212; helped Robles out with the flat tire and convinced him to move to the town and open a restaurant. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, sixteen years later, Robles owns and operates one of the more popular restaurants in town &#8212; Mi Ranchito.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And he\u2019s president of the Bath Development Authority &#8212; an organization he helped start to promote all things Town of Bath and Berkeley Springs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He would transform the town\u2019s train depot &#8212; which is owned by the town &#8212; into a welcome center.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPut in a big map showing what we have in town,\u201d Robles told This Week in Morgan County. \u201cYou can take a break in the welcome center and then walk right into the town.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What\u2019s wrong with that idea?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI don\u2019t want to say names, but there is another group who doesn\u2019t think that would be a good idea,\u201d Robles said. \u201cFor them, the town is perfect the way it is now. I\u2019ll be very straight with you. The town is not right the way it is now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robles says that the town needs to create at least 20 to 50 new jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What businesses would he like to attract to the town?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He would promote tourism &#8212; more spas, more massage rooms &#8212; \u201cplaces where people would come to relax, places where people can come in to disconnect from the big routine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThey don\u2019t want to hear noise,\u201d Robles said. \u201cThey want to come in to a quiet town.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robles says that Berkeley Springs has to be seen as a resort town where people can come seven days a week &#8212; not just on the weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhen you call some places, they tell you that you need to schedule an appointment for a Thursday or a Friday,\u201d Robles said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mi Ranchito is opened six days a week. He takes Tuesday off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI closed one day to be with my boys,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robles says that Berkeley Springs suffered the double whammy of the closing of Coolfont in 2006 and the Wall Street meltdown in 2008. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robles says that those two events cut business by about half. Only now is the economy starting to come back a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robles says that the Bath Development Authority is looking to take out billboards on the local interstates &#8212; 70 and 68. On those billboards, he wants to send the message that Berkeley Springs is open seven days a week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robles estimates that as many as 1.5 million vehicles pass through Berkeley Springs every year and that only one or two percent stop in. He would like to boost the number to five percent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oscar Robles was traveling with a friend from Virginia to Seattle, Washington in 1999 when a tire on his car went flat in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. The then Mayor of the Town of Bath &#8212; Susan Webster &#8212; helped &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2085\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2086,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions\/2086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}