Today the Green Bay Packers played the Detroit Lions, and one of Abby’s prime requests when we were planning this trip was that if the travel overlapped a Packers game… we had to find a bar where we could watch it. You see… for the uninitiated (and I counted myself among you until about six months ago now)… fans of the Green Bay Packers have opened bars all over the world for those who want to watch the games alongside similarly-minded fans. Depending on where you are in the world, this can mean a great deal of idiosyncrasies… but there are some staples that make a Packers bar.. a Packers bar. One is that the game audio must be on, not just the game on TV. Another is that songs like “The Bears Still Suck” must play at some point over the audio system in the bar. There are others, but suffice it to say we’d checked up on Kettle of Fish on Thursday to make sure it passed muster… and today we were headed from midtown pretty far south again to get in line for the game.
Given how popular the bar is these days (quarterback Aaron Rodgers even stopped by a few months back), we were planning to arrive at 10:30 AM for a 1:00 PM game. We also wanted to find something to snack on, since the bar didn’t’ have food, just to ensure we didn’t get hungry during the game. As you’ll probably guess, today’s update will be a shorter one simply because we didn’t do a lot beyond the game, and I’m not going to recap the game for you. Don’t skip ahead now, though, it was still quite a day!
We left the hotel and decided to walk down streets that were either smaller, or that we hadn’t walked down previously. This led to me getting us lost for a while, but by 10:10 we were standing in front of the bar. We hadn’t found food…but a quick Google Maps search and we were headed to Waverly Diner about a block away.
I should have taken more pictures that day, the diner was great and we sat at the bar in the back eating egg sandwiches as quickly as possible to get back in line. By the time we did, we met our first Kettle of Fish “regular”. One man was in line outside the bar, soon joined by his friend, and he was accompanied also by his dog (appropriately named “Lambeau”). Everyone was decked out in Packers gear… and so was the bar!
We made friends as best we could, talking and enjoying the free food that the bar handed out (fresh pretzel/bread bites! Yum!). By the time the game started, there were probably 50 people in line all wearing Packers jerseys, hats, or coats. By the time we paid the cover and got inside the bar, we discovered that the entire bar was reserved for regulars… which was not what we had been told on Thursday but… the bar is moderately sized and we found ourselves on a couch in the back-room. We were soon joined by two other people from New York and a husband/wife couple from Alabama. We talked some more, drank some beer, and generally made friends all around. When the game came on… it was down to business, and things progressed as you would expect them to until the fourth quarter when people were beginning to lose hope.
For the second time in 2019, though, the Packers kicked a game-ending field goal on the final play of the game as time expired, our team had won! This win meant some benefits in the playoffs (which are coming up soon!), and also meant there were hugs and cheers throughout the bar and all around. I imagine the bar isn’t quite as warm when the team doesn’t win.
We celebrated with our new friends a bit more before leaving the bar, and heading for another local haunt that Abby’s friend had recommended: McSorley’s Old Ale House.
Having no idea what we were getting into, we walked into McSorley’s and enjoyed the fact that there was actually sawdust on the floor of the bar. There were also a LOT of people, and the bar was crowded multiple layers deep. As we debated if this was somewhere we wanted to try to get a drink and relax (I think I even said to Abby “I don’t think this is really my scene…”), a server came up next to us in the throng.
“Hey!” he said, looking us both from head to toe, “You know what you’re drinking?”
“Uh… we don’t yet”, I replied, “We haven’t seen a menu or anything.”
“You have a few choices,” he yelled back, trying to be heard over the general din of the bar. “Dark, Light, or get out!”
We ordered a dark and a light (beer), assuming we’d see what it was like.
“You guys want to sit?” the employee asked.
“Uh, yeah!” I said, and he pointed to a table behind us where two chairs sat empty while the rest of the table was full of a group in the middle of deep conversation.
“Great! Sit there!” he replied, and helped us saddle up to the table.
As it would turn out over the next few hours (and beer, after beer, after beer round ordered by our new friends at the table), this was my kind of place after all.
We were seated with a group of four (it would end up around 8-10 eventually) people from Portugal who were in town on business but taking it easy on the weekend. Most were around our age, with some older friends in the mix. Three of them spoke English, with one quiet one who would just look at us and nod during the conversation until Abby called him on the fact that he didn’t understand a word. We all laughed as he bobbed his head up and down stating “Yes. No English!”.
He would later claim that while he couldn’t speak English, dance was the only language he’d need. They were waiting for friends to arrive, and soon our small table of six was a table of 10. We were invited dancing with them and their friends, but by this time we’d been out all day and every time a drink emptied another round would appear on the table (a round being two glasses of beer per person, mind you). I don’t remember how many we had, but after finding out that the bar was cash-only I was out of cash after our first few rounds. Abby would soon follow, and when we thought it would be appropriate but not overly rude… we paid for our last beers and stood quickly before the bartenders brought us any more to drink.
We thanked them for letting us sit with them, and for all the fun and conversation. Saying that we should meet for a bit of dancing later, we left them just as their friends arrived and filled in the table and seats behind us.
Fully planning on walking to the hotel, we headed outside… but it was cold and after a few blocks I realized that even though I had just used the restroom at the bar… I had to pee! Silly I know, why would I write about that? Well, because it made us take a cab back to the hotel instead of walking. New York isn’t exactly the type of place where you can just pop into a shop along the road and use the restroom (without buying anything, anyway). So we took a cab, hurrying back to the hotel, and even though it was still somewhat early we’d both had enough stress (thanks Aaron Rodgers!) and drinks to decide to call it any early night. Tomorrow was our last full day in New York, with plans at the Tenement Museum, in Brooklyn with Rachel and Sara, and hopefully some more trips on the subway.
