STATE OF REVELRY
Badgers, Packers mix with New Year’s for three days of fun
Brace yourself for a three-day party, Wisconsin. New Year’s Eve will be celebrated Saturday night. New Year’s Day will be culminated when the Green Bay Packers play Sunday night with a divisional title on the line against the Detroit Lions.
On Monday, when many folks will be off work as a holiday, the University of Wisconsin Badgers will play in the Cotton Bowl.
All of those festivities are stacking up for a huge weekend for Wisconsin sports fans, holiday revelers and the businesses they patronize across the state.
This promises to be one of the busiest party weekends in recent memory.
“New Year’s Eve is what it is. It should be a busy one,” said Mike Szohr, general manager at Leff’s Lucky Town Bar and Grill in Wauwatosa. “Then we roll right into Sunday with the Packers in a makeor-break game.
“With it being a Packer game on Sunday night, everything on the line and no one works the next day, that turns it into what could be a blockbuster,” Szohr said.
The bar has already boosted its inventory. “We will overload with chicken wings, burgers,” Szohr said. “The Miller High Life and Miller Lite will be flowing.”
The folks at Sussex-based Beer Capitol Distributing Co. will be out in force all weekend making sure the flow is uninterrupted.
“We’re going to make sure that the beer is everywhere it needs to be,” said Chad Paulson, human resource manager at Beer Capitol Distributing. “We’re prepared for it.”
So are the folks at Discount Liquor, which has stores in Milwaukee and Waukesha.
The stores have added extra inventory in preparation for the weekend, said Marie Greguska, second-generation family co-owner. “It’s a busy weekend for us anyhow because it’s New Year’s Eve, but we’ve noticed it’s been busier earlier this week than in the past,” she said. “We’ve been busy since Monday.”
The Packers game being moved to 7:30 p.m. Sunday has something to do with the bump in business, Greguska said.
“Changing the time of the game made a huge difference,” she said. For a noon game, people might be still gathering themselves after a late night on New Year’s Eve. “But now with it being 7:30 p.m., you really have the entire day to recoup. People will be watching it and partying again, because most of the work world is off on Monday.”
The Fox Bros. Piggly Wiggly stores in
southeastern Wisconsin also are prepared for a big weekend, said Pat Fox, company president.
Typically, Dec. 30 and 31 are busy days for the chain of grocery stores. Then, business tends to tail off a bit on Jan. 1. Not this year. “What I think is going to happen this time is that the 30th and 31st will be like they normally are, but then we’ll get a boost on Jan. 1st because of the Packer game having significance and also being on a Sunday night,” Fox said.
“I wouldn’t have felt that way five weeks ago because the Packers wouldn’t have mattered five weeks ago,” Fox added. “But now that they have a chance to win the NFC North and go to the playoffs, that’s going to make Jan. 1st a better day than it normally would be for us. “There will be a Packer bump,” he said. For businesses in Green Bay, there is more riding on the Packers game than a division championship and a victory in the 175th meeting between the two teams in a rivalry that dates to 1930.
“The biggest thing will be whether Green Bay wins Sunday night,” said Jerry Watson, owner of the Stadium View Bar and Grille, located about a block from Lambeau Field at 1963 Holmgren Way. “That’s the key to the whole universe.”
If the Packers win, they will host a playoff game at Lambeau Field on the following weekend.
“The one extra playoff game in Green Bay pays my property taxes for the year,” Watson said. “And my property taxes are pretty big, let’s put it that way.
“That’s how much of a difference it makes, that one extra playoff game,” he added. “It’s a great big dollar swing for this whole Stadium District.”
But the Packers have to win Sunday’s game first. Watson says he’s expecting his bar to be packed for Sunday night’s game. He’s planning to open at least part of his adjacent banquet hall to accommodate an overflow crowd.
“When teams are winning, people are grinning and drinking beer,” Paulson said. “If the Packers keep winning, it’s good news for us.”