No Packers fans makes recovery harder for Green Bay area businesses

Richard Ryman
Green Bay Press-Gazette

ASHWAUBENON - For businesses that rely on the Green Bay Packers for a substantial part of their income, a training camp without fans is another blow in a coronavirus-dominated world.

"You didn’t really build pandemic into your business plan. We all will now," said Bill Tressler, owner of Hinterland Brewery in Ashwaubenon.

Training camp, which normally brings more than 90,000 visitors to Green Bay from across the nation and more than 20 countries, is closed to the public. And the Packers said no more than 12,000 fans will be allowed to attend games this season, compared with the average of 77,000-plus that bought tickets last season.

The estimated economic impact of Packers' home games is $15 million per game during the regular season; training camp is estimated at $9 million. Over the course of a year, Packers operations create more than $170 million in economic impact.

Magda Pleus wears a mask and gloves while serving a customer in the outdoor dining area at Hinterland Brewery in Ashwaubenon.

Restaurants in the Lambeau Field district that reopened for on-site service in May and June report customers are making their way back.

"People are really coming and dining out. We are more busy now from 11 to 3 than we’ve ever been," said Tim Kuehn, owner of Margarita's Famous Mexican Food and Cantina in Ashwaubenon. "They know they can practice social distancing and there's not a whole lot else to do for entertainment."

But that recovery is taking place in the shadow of a football season filled with questions. 

While the Packers have said they might allow up to 12,000 fans per game, they've also said that number could be less, especially when the season kicks off.  

"Now we are taking a deep breath to see what’s going to happen with the regular season. Are fans going to be allowed and how much?" Kuehn said.

Business at Hinterland has gradually increased since the re-opening and now is at about 50% of normal, Tressler said. Hinterland, which is in the Packers' Titletown District, has a large dining room and the advantage of an ozone machine, normally used for cleaning brewing tanks, to cleanse the air at night. 

"Even at 50%, that’s 150 people. Outdoors is about the same. We have a big park to spread out in," he said. 

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Like Hinterland, restaurants that have them are making use of outdoor dining areas and practice social distancing inside.

"We are following the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. safety guidelines for restaurants," said Mike McNerney, owner of Green Bay Distillery in Ashwaubenon. "We are just doing normal restaurant operations. We are sticking with what we know and we are good at. I think all things considered we’re fine. It’s just not the norm."

During the good-weather months, at least, Hinterland plans a lot of outdoor programming, hoping to draw in people who are going to the game, or even people who just want to be in the district on game days.

"I don’t think it will come anywhere close to the normal number of fans," Tressler said. "The proposed action plan we’ve put in place is a lot of outdoor programming and very closely monitoring the number of people inside the building. What that means in terms of revenue or sales is it's going to be reduced by a significant amount."

Like many other restaurants, Hinterland and Margaritas offered takeout service when bars and restaurants were shut down from March to May. And because it is a brewer, Hinterland was able to continue selling its beer, although it had fewer bar sales than normal.

Grace Fangman wears a mask while taking customers' orders in the outdoor dining area at Hinterland Brewery in Ashwaubenon.

"There still was demand for our beer. We tried to increase our packaged product. Not enough to make up for all the loss in draft sales, but it’s still pretty robust," Tressler said. "The curbside pickup is great, but I don’t know that it can sustain people. The one silver lining in all of this is we have a takeout business now. We never did before." 

Fewer people at games means more people watching from home. Joe Durst, senior director of deli operations for Festival Foods, said he expects the normal increase in game-related sales will be even greater.

"Any reason to celebrate, it seems like people are doing it in smaller groups, but they are looking forward to doing something different, treat themselves to something special," Durst said. "We expect Packers season to be no different, especially when people aren’t allowed at the games. We expect our tailgating items to really fly off the shelves."

Festival has adjusted its offerings to meet the changing needs of customers, such as providing options tailored to smaller gatherings.  

"We’ve lowered some of the sizes of the packages. We’ve created some packages for  gatherings of five to 10 people, or three to eight people," he said.

Packers fans are especially important to Mike Worachek's Card and Coin/Packer City Antiques in Ashwaubenon. With no fans at training camp, he's missing one of the biggest-selling segments of the year. He's not sure, yet, what the impact will be, but he's not encouraged.

"It’s an unknown for me. This is usually the best time of the year — this and Christmas. Training camp is as good as the regular season home games," he said. "We are going to know more in three months."

In truth, memorabilia sales have not been a big part of the business for the last 10 years, which may be why he is one of the few such retailers left. 

"There are more people selling than buying, and young people don't care," he said.

The one bright spot has been sports card sales to card break events, which allow collectors to buy, for example, cards of a single team out of a new case of cards.

Collectible coin and currency sales, however, are what sustain the business, especially in times of economic uncertainty.

 "Metals are making a great run these last couple of weeks," he said.

Like restaurants, hotels and motels are slowly recovering from the economy being shut down. And like restaurants, that recovery is far from complete, which will not be helped by a truncated football season that will make it unlikely that the Green Bay area's 46 hotels will fill their 4,364 rooms.

Hotel occupancy, which hit a low of 16.1% in April, rebounded to about 45% in July.

That's significantly less than the normal occupancy rate of 65% for this time of year, said Brad Toll, president and CEO of the Greater Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. 

"This has been a very, very difficult year for the hoteliers and not just for the Packers games. We are down 50-60% month over month," said Jason Hager, vice president of Tundra Lodge Resort & Conference Center. Hager also is chairman of both the Brown County Room Tax Commission and the Greater Green Bay Lodging Association.

The Packers' decision to limit admissions on game days is just another challenge on top of the challenges already brought on by the pandemic, Hager said. 

"People just aren’t traveling," he said. "The corporations aren’t traveling. I think our hoteliers are getting very creative in packaging and bringing guests to a hotel in a way they feel safe." 

Hotels follow local health department recommendations, or in the case of larger chains, the standards of their company, to keep customers safe.

"I feel very comfortable to say our hotels are doing what they can do," Hager said. 

Contact Richard Ryman at (920) 431-8342 or rryman@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RichRymanPG, on Instagram at  @rrymanPG or  on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RichardRymanPG/

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