Hoboken resident and superstar New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning will no longer have to hold practices at the Hoboken High School football field with his teammates.
A collective sigh of relief among football fans echoed across the nation this week after team owners of the National Football League announced their lockout would come to an end, ensuring a football season this fall.
Perhaps the happiest response came from a community that thrives on Sunday afternoon entertainment: Hoboken bar owners.
‘It would take the fun out of ‘Funday’ and make it a plain old Sunday.’ – Joe Porcello
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Owners/managers reflect on what could have happened
Steve DiBartolomeo is the general manager of Hoboken Bar and Grill on Washington Street.
“If there was no football, it would be a significant decrease in weekend revenue,” he said last week, just a few days before the lockout was expected to end. He said he would have had to come up with new ideas and different promotions to try and make up for the losses his bar would have suffered without an NFL season.
“But we would never be able to recoup what the NFL season does for us,” DiBartolomeo said.
Dawn Kaplan, the owner of the Liberty Bar and Restaurant uptown, said she would have had to think of promotions on Sundays.
“We’d have to come up with something because on Sundays in the fall and winter everybody is geared up for the games,” Kaplan said. “We have beer pong, so we would probably do something like that.”
Some bars around the city make a little more money on Sundays because they, for one reason or another, have become hot spots for fans of teams from out of the area. For example, Mulligan’s on First Street has become the destination for fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, the Giants arch rival.
“We get about 150 people in here [on game days],” said Phil Dawson, the owner of Mulligans. “But it depends on how the Eagles are playing…it’s a nice crowd. We’ve never had any problems with the Giants and Jets fans mixing with the Eagles fans.”
Dawson said his Sunday afternoons at Mulligan’s during football season are comparable to a Friday or Saturday night, when many out of town visitors come into Hoboken to enjoy the city’s nightlife.
“People come from everywhere on Sundays,” Dawson said. “I personally feel a lockout would kill the bars. Football in Hoboken has gotten so big now, and so many people are coming and usually the special [prices] are unbelievable…There are so many bars that fans can choose from in Hoboken, and you don’t really have that in other towns.”
Dawson said that if the lockout had killed the season, he would have taken off on Sundays, knowing that it would be a quiet atmosphere.
Texas Arizona, a downtown bar in Hoboken near the New Jersey Transit terminal, has become a top destination for Pittsburgh Steelers fans in the area.
“A lockout wouldn’t have just hurt Texas Arizona, it would hurt everybody in town: bars, pizza parlors, and all the stores that people use when they come into town,” said Mike Citarella, the general manager. “[A lockout] would hurt the country.”
Despite the negotiations going down to the wire, Citarella said he and his bar staff hadn’t discussed what they would do in case there wasn’t a season.
The Wicked Wolf, a fairly new bar and restaurant on Sinatra Drive that has become a hotspot for football fans since it opened in September, also would be hurt financially if there was no season, according to Joe Porcello, the general manager.
“We have a great NFL following here on Sundays, so it would definitely hurt the business if there was a lockout,” Porcello said. “It would take the fun out of ‘Funday’ and make it a plain old Sunday.”
Although the bars have a lot at stake, Porcello said he wasn’t worried.
“[The owners and players] have more at stake than we do,” he said. “I always thought they’d be able to work a deal out.”
What about the NBA?
The National Basketball Association is also involved in a lockout, and the professional basketball season could potentially be delayed or canceled. However, the issue of an NBA work stoppage doesn’t have the bar owners of Hoboken worried. A few bar owners said they believe the NBA lockout may have an impact on their business, but it would be “minimal.”
Hoboken has many bars that cater to different fans, but the big question still has yet to be answered. Is Hoboken a Giants town or a Jets town? Log on to HudsonReporter.com and take our poll.
Ray Smith may be reached at RSmith@hudsonreporter.com