Super Bowl: A battle for lobsters and cheesesteaks
MID-CITY — The seats were sold out days ago, extra kegs of beer have been ordered, and cases of champagne are chilling on ice.
This Super Bowl Sunday, Wilshire Boulevard in eastern Santa Monica will serve as the great divide between die-hard fans of the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Beyond championship rings, bragging rights and beer-soaked revelry, this year’s Super Bowl match-up for the owners of two Santa Monica watering holes is about fresh lobsters or Philly cheesesteaks.
Loser cooks. Jim Conners, 34, owner of Sonny McLean’s on the north side of Wilshire Boulevard, faces off against Pat Good, 42, owner of The Shack, on the south side of Wilshire Boulevard.
Both bars for years have drawn droves of fans of the two football teams. Sonny McLean’s, an Irish joint with a Boston bent, was the site of riot police and helicopters after last year’s World Series. The Shack for a decade has been the home of Eagles fans hungry for victory.
Every seat in both bars is reserved. At The Shack, Good is setting up a tent in the rear parking lot that will host an extra 200 people over the 150 regulars that have dibs on bar stools. At Sonny McLean’s, Conners is bracing for some 200 people and a long line, starting early in the morning, of people hoping to find standing room.
The two bars share an amicable rivalry that dates back to well before the two teams were pitted against each other in the Super Bowl. Workers and customers compete in weekend flag football games. They visit each other’s bars during halftime to take shots and rib one another.
New England Patriots fans, who will file into Sonny McLean’s early Sunday, hope for a victory to complement the Boston Red Sox’s World Series win. After that momentous curse-breaking series, Boston fans cried, broke benches, danced on tables and crowd surfed.
Doorman Sam Fusaro, 21, said one man was so elated he stood on his bar stool and poured a pitcher of beer over his head. Another man, slightly tipsy, proposed to his girlfriend on a live news broadcast in front of the bar. Champagne stains still mark the ceiling.
“Our fans are really loud,” said manager and bartender Julie Mitchell, 30, as she fielded calls Thursday afternoon from Patriots fans still hoping for a seat. “The whole building was rumbling.”
Across the street at The Shack, the pre-game buzz was palpable. Husband-and-wife team Pat and Janet Good were rushing around Thursday afternoon as they prepared for the influx of Eagles fans who have made the bar their home for some 10 years.
“I can’t even breathe, I’m so excited,” Janet Good said.
The bar started 10 years ago as a place to watch all the NFL games. Now only Eagles games play on the bar’s TV screens.
“I’m from Philly, I grew up there, and of course I want to watch my own games,” Pat Good said. “I thought it would take off, but I had no idea it would take off as big as it did.”
Over the past 10 years, the Goods have hosted Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie over beers. And they pride themselves on having connected at least two couples of Philly-lovers who now are married. They also have turned strangers into comrades-in-sport, and on weekends arrange Philadelphia-themed outings, renting buses to carry their customers out of town.
Long-time regular Peter Block, 71, said before the first game of the season last year, some 50 cars had to be turned away after the bar filled up. Every Sunday is a party, Block added.
“It’s the wildest thing you could imagine,” he said.
The Goods hope to avoid sending away too many fans this year by setting up their 50-foot-by-30-foot tent, where a $25 door charge, or $20 in advance, will buy Italian hoagies and hot dogs with sauerkraut, and proceeds will go partly to a charity for multiple sclerosis. Regulars will pay $10 for their seats in the bar, slots that have been reserved for days.
“It’s a huge celebration,” Pat Good said. “Huge.”
If the Eagles win in Sunday’s Super Bowl match-up, Good and 11 friends will head to Sonny McLean’s for a lobster dinner, courtesy of Conners. If the Patriots win, Conners and 15 friends will sit down for Philly cheesesteaks at The Shack.
Only one thing is certain, beyond the fact that many wieners will be washed down with beer: One set of fans will walk away victors at the end of the game, and the other set will not.
“Losing is not good, especially the Super Bowl,” said Mitchell, an Indiana native who said she’s been adopted by the Sonny McLean’s family. “You can tell in the tips when they lose, you can. When they win it’s like, ‘Yeah!’ They’re not very good at losing.”
It’s a feeling the Goods know well, after consecutive Eagles losses in divisional championship games.
“There have been days when people walk out with their heads hung low,” said Pat Good, who after previous losses piped songs such as “On the Way to Cape May,” “Philadelphia Freedom” and the theme from “Rocky” over the bar’s PA system. “We’ve had some good years, anyway.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 4, 2005. Read the original PDF.