Over the last four months, Sheryl Elia has noticed many people come down the winding Outer Drive, get out of their cars and take pictures in front of her sign.
Elia is the general manager and one of the owners of Alhonna Resort at the Lake of the Ozarks, which helped inspire the Netflix TV series "Ozark."
Elia said last week that traffic at Alhonna's bar and restaurant has increased since the show debuted in July, but she had not noticed any increase in the number of people spending a weekend at the 60-unit waterfront resort.
"I think we had more curiosity-seekers than anything else stop in," Elia said. "Maybe they had a drink, maybe they ate a meal. I don’t think any of them actually stayed here because we were loosely affiliated with the show.
"We did have a lot of people drive by and take pictures."
Most of the filming for "Ozark" was done in Georgia, but Alhonna helped inspire the setting.
As the News-Leader reported last year, the show's writer Bill Dubuque worked as a dock hand at Alhonna while he was in school in the late '80s.
Dubuque and the show's star Jason Bateman came to Alhonna during the pre-production process to scope out the resort, which has many similarities to the Blue Cat Lodge from the show.
"The whole concept of the Blue Cat Lodge is similar to Alhonna," Elia said. "It was a resort, it had cabins, it had rooms, it had gas, it had boat rentals, it had a bar, a restaurant, it was a self-contained mom and pop-type operation."
In the show, Bateman plays Marty Byrde, a financial adviser who launders money for a Mexican drug cartel.
In an attempt to save his life, Byrde moves his family and his money-laundering operation from Chicago to the Lake of the Ozarks. Laura Linney plays Bateman's wife.
Elia said she enjoyed the first season of "Ozark," and she plans to watch Season 2 whenever it drops on the Netflix streaming service.
"The big thing is hopefully it increases the awareness of Lake of the Ozarks for the rest of the nation who may not have heard of it," Elia said.
Kate Renfrow, communications manager with the Missouri Division of Tourism, said the show definitely got some people interested in the lake.
Between May and August, Renfrow said, there was a 100 percent increase in website traffic on the Division of Tourism's Lake of the Ozarks pages compared to the same timeframe in 2016.
"It certainly has been successful in generating interest," Renfrow said of the show.
Renfrow said she did not have any data about the economic impact the show might have had on the Lake of the Ozarks region.
The show deals with some heavy topics like murder, drugs, adultery and poverty.
Elia, the resort owner, said some lake residents were upset with how the locals were portrayed in "Ozark," but she said it's important to keep in mind the show is not based on a true story.
"Obviously it's not a documentary about life in the Ozarks," Elia said. "It's somebody's theatrical take on it. So you can take that with a grain of salt and enjoy the ride."
Elia said she could easily tell which scenes were filmed at the Lake of the Ozarks and which scenes were filmed in Georgia, and it was cool to see some local spots in a national TV show.
"Ozark" was popular enough to be renewed for a second season on Netflix, but what exactly that means for the lake is a little murky.
