It takes a village to fully support more than one NFL football team in the playoffs, even if begrudgingly, but the Village Inn in North Hudson pulls it off again this weekend, with the backing given to both the Packers by land (as in farm country) and the Vikings by sea (harken the early pirate days of their ancestors).
So, as owner Leigh says unabashedly, this is a Packer bar, but they can bend the rules a bit more and a bit more as the season progresses — and if the Vikings don’t do one of their disappearing acts. So for this weekend, it will be nuts with cheering all the way through to shortly before midnight on Sunday, as has been the situation a bit more and a bit more as the decades have progressed — and yes, The Village has been serving the Packer population that long, and when judging by the sheer numbers watching games, they have got to be the main destination for such sports bar revelry in the entire area. Its not easy to fill up a place that big week in and week out,.
Why this devotion to one venue? The vast majority of the fans are seated at dozens of tables that are spread reasonably apart, giving some leg room rather then the only option being squeezing in a bar area, so when there is a touchdown patrons can literally up jump and wave their arms around, and they regularly will, all the time shouting in most cases Score rather then Skol, although you can do that too (and this should be an air show battle). And if the bar rail is your thing, you can get do that too, and no doubt be close enough together to get into some candid conversation, if you are among that area’s frequently cerebral crew, and they are not just a few.
There are 20-plus televisions combined into several different banks, so if you want to watch something like soccer instead, the bartender can likely hook you up. And one more big bank that’s an attraction because combines many different glass-enclosed cabinets into one big viewing wall of NFL helmets, and it takes in even more show pieces than the number of TVs.
Lastly, you cannot forget the big PDFP attraction of specials, which can and do get a lot of attention. That is short for pizza, drink, food and pitchers.
The Vikings are on during the late afternoon Saturday and the Packers on Sunday night.