Almost no bar in New York charges you to walk through the door to watch football. Kettle of Fish does, on the Sundays that matter, and the charge is the most useful piece of information about the place. Fourteen dollars gets you in and hands back two tickets, each exchangeable for a beer or a bratwurst. That is not a cover in the nightclub sense. It is a filter — it means the room on Christopher Street is full of people who decided in advance that this was where they were spending the afternoon, and it keeps out the drifters who wander in during the second quarter looking for a free stool.
A bar with your game on and a bar full of your people are two different Sundays, and search results cannot tell them apart. Ask Karpo which room in your neighbourhood actually hosts your club, whether it charges at the door, and what time the regulars get there.
A literary bar that got quietly annexed
The Kettle has been around since 1950 and has moved twice, starting on MacDougal Street and landing on Christopher Street just off Sheridan Square. Its earlier incarnations collected the Beats — Jack Kerouac drank in it, Bob Dylan passed through — and the current address has its own literary ghost, because the room previously housed the Lion's Head, the newspaperman's bar that Pete Hamill and Frank McCourt kept in business. None of that is why it is full on Sundays in the autumn.
It is full because of Patrick Daley, who is from Wauwatosa, just outside Milwaukee, and who has been behind this bar since 1981. He bought the rights to the name in 1998. A Wisconsin bartender with three decades of tenure is how a Village tavern turns into the city's Green Bay clubhouse without ever advertising itself as one, and it is why the Badgers get the same treatment as the Packers on Saturdays.
What the room is actually like when the game is on
Six screens, and on a Sunday in the season all six are on the same game. That sounds obvious and it is not — most New York sports bars are running eight feeds at once with the sound down, which is an entirely different experience. Here the room watches one thing together. Bar stools are spoken for by regulars; the tables in the back room, past the dart boards, are where a group can actually sit. The memorabilia goes up before the game and comes down afterwards, which is a tell that this is a neighbourhood bar wearing a costume rather than a themed one.
The one permanent fixture is a Gatorade cooler from Super Bowl XLV, signed by Aaron Rodgers and the team's trainers, inscribed with a line about keeping the New York Packer fans hydrated. It is the sort of object that only ends up in a bar that has earned it.
The yellow card, which nobody tells you about
Regulars get a yellow card that is punched each time they turn up. Accumulate enough holes across the season and it converts into entry for a playoff game — the Sundays when the door is hardest and the room is most worth being in. It is a loyalty scheme designed to reward the people who came in September when the team was bad, rather than the ones who appear in January. If you are planning to make this a habit rather than a one-off, ask for the card on your first visit, not your fourth.
The food situation is worth setting expectations on. Bratwurst is the only hot food the bar serves. There is cheddar and summer sausage alongside it, which is the correct Wisconsin answer and not a full lunch. Eat before you come, or accept that you are eating brats. The bar itself has darts on two boards, pinball, an old Ms Pac-Man and Galaga cabinet and a jukebox with a real reputation — all of which is what you do between the early and late windows.
Early kickoffs need a phone call
For anything unusual — an early Packers start, a Badgers game in a difficult time slot, a London kickoff — the bar opens ahead of its normal hours, but it does not publish those times. It asks you to call. That is a genuine quirk rather than an oversight: opening times get set around the fixture list week by week, and the only reliable way to know whether the door will be unlocked at 9am is to ring the bar and ask a human. Do it a couple of days ahead rather than the morning of.
Practical notes
Kettle of Fish, 59 Christopher Street, just off Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village. Nearest subway is Christopher Street-Sheridan Square on the 1, or West 4th Street for the A, B, C, D, E, F and M. On Packers game days expect a door charge in the region of fourteen dollars, redeemable for two beers or brats. Bratwurst is the only hot food; cheddar and summer sausage are the accompaniment. Six screens, all on the one game. Back room tables are the seating that groups can realistically get. Ask about the punch card if you intend to come back. Call ahead for opening times on early or unusual kickoffs — they are set week by week and are not posted. Door prices and opening hours change, so confirm before travelling across town.
Please drink responsibly. Must be of legal drinking age.
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Ask Karpo first
Team bars in New York run on arrangements that are barely documented anywhere — a door fee that only applies on certain Sundays, an early opening that has to be phoned for, a back room that is the only place you can actually sit. Ask Karpo what this weekend's setup is at the room you are thinking about, and what the nearest alternative is if it has already hit capacity.
