By Amy Patton
When diehard football fans Michelle and Tony Marra arrived to attend the Buffalo Bills vs. New England Patriots game on a recent Thursday evening you could say they had great seats.
That is, at Dons’ Place, the Key West bar on Truman Avenue.
The Jamestown, New York, couple had hopped a nonstop flight that morning from the nearby Pittsburgh airport and in about four hours, they said, escaped the drizzly, dreary weather of the northeast, trading coats and scarves for their breezy Bills wearable merch. Clad head to toe in her team’s logos at Dons’, Michelle said simply of her Bills fandom: “I was born into it.”
The two are season ticket holders at the Bills’ stadium in Buffalo, but simply wanted to be in the sun.
“We’re warm now,” Michelle said with a wink.
Around the island, and with Super Bowl LVII on the horizon for Feb. 12, battle lines are clearly drawn by National Football League fans when it comes to the local watering holes. And the revenue generated from the avid patronage is no game, remarked Shots and Giggles owner Steve Kibbe.
“Our drink sales jump 70% when football is in season,” he said last week at the bar on Ann Street.
Most bars and restaurants that cater to sports fans find that offering the NFL Ticket, a cable package that makes all NFL games available, on their TV screens is a must. And the “ex-pats” in town who have made their way permanently down to the Southernmost City bring their team loyalty with them, abandoning the home couch for the crowd.
“Eastern NFC fans tend to gather here,” he said. “That means teams like the Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants and Washington Commanders.”
Kibbe and his wife Hannia go all out with noshies on game day. “We host a kind of potluck where anyone can bring a dish, dessert, whatever.”
Best of all, said Kibbe, the food is free to patrons.
Hannia, a fervent Washington Commanders supporter, said she “butts heads” at times with her husband, who cheers for the Philly team. “It’s a friendly rivalry,” she added.
Over at the Irish-themed Celtic Conch Public House on Front Street, the whoops, shouts — and shots — flow when the Eagles are on one of the multiple screens there. And the cash flows along with it.
”It’s all beer and wings, all day,” bar manager Scott Grossman said last weekend. While the Philly fan base is tight at the multi-floored bar and restaurant, “We take requests for viewing NFL Ticket games from anyone who comes in.”
Which makes one wonder; where are all the Florida fans?
“Oh, we do have some Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans that come into the mix,” Grossman said.
Midwesterners have their place, too, across town at the Viva Argentinian House on Duval Street. There, the Cleveland Browns rule the NFC North, according to a group of Ohio fans who have even given a moniker to their fandom: Key West Browns Backers.
These rabid football devotees are ready to “kill some Dolphins,” they said during a planned chartered road trip up to Miami’s Hard Rock stadium on Nov. 13 for the game, according to the group’s page on Viva’s website.
In addition to the new Celtic Conch and its flock of Philadelphia Eagles fans, a similarly vocal group can be heard every Sunday at Sally O’Brien’s on Flagler Avenue.
“Let’s go, Birds,” and “Fly, Eagles, fly,” are commonly heard throughout the Irish-themed bar that used to be Shanna Key.
In Key West, extreme fandom with a side of good-natured rivalry is alive and well. That’s how game day played out last Sunday afternoon at Shots and Giggles.
“This is our living room,” laughed Lynn Horst, whose allegiance was made clear by her apparel: Chicago Bears all the way. Her daughters Beth Blejski and Sarah Girdley made themselves at home in the bar’s cozy sofa area for the Bears vs. Green Bay Packers showdown.
Blejski joked that “we sit back here away from the buffet; it’s too tempting.”
The family has been showing up at the place for 10 years, Horst said.
So with the big business of the professional football season benefitting the bottom line of the beer-and-buffet proprietors in Key West, it’s not if you watch the game, but where.
On Thursday night, the Marras’ frenzied fandom at Dons’ Place paid off. The couple’s cheers turned to shouts as the Buffalo Bills beat the Patriots 24-17.
