WISCONSIN (NBC 26) — As the Green Bay Packers take on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, NBC 26 decided to see where we could find green and gold fans outside Wisconsin state borders, specifically in Pennsylvania.
MilkBoy, is an official Green Bay Packers barin the state of Pennsylvania.
The bar located in the heart of downtown Philadelphia has been bringing in Packers fans for ten years.
Watch video below to get a feel for this Packers bar:
Renee Maffiore has been working at MilkBoy bar for nine years. She is a jack of all trades having taken on nearly every single role in that establishment.
Maffiore explains how this bar hundreds of miles away from Wisconsin has turned into the happening place in Pennsylvania to watch every Packers game.
“We had a bartender when we first opened. His name was Carl Johnson from Wisconsin and obviously we’re in the middle of Philadelphia, every other bar is an Eagle’s bar. He was like ‘Can I bring my friends over, can I turn off the Eagle’s game off?’ We were like if they are going to spend money, bring them in and it just turned into this huge thing,” Maffiore said.
After that conversation, she says Johnson soon started bringing in his friends.
“So we tried it, and it was like ten friends turned into 20 friends turned into 30, 40, 50. And now like especially towards playoff time, we’ll open both floors, like we’re a two floor establishment, we’ll open both floors and be packed wall to wall,” Maffiore said.
But are all those people coming to the bar indeed Packers fans?
“All Packers fans. We have people, especially like towards Playoffs, we’ll meet people we’ve never met people that have traveled from like Pennsylvania suburbs but we were the closest place for them,” said Maffiore. “The staff included is starting to turn into Packer fandom. All Packers fans.”
So what exactly does it mean to be an official Packers bar?Click here to read more.
“That means that if the Eagles are playing at the same time we will not show them. We are Packers through and through. We actually have a little plaque from Wisconsin that says we are an official Packers establishment,” Maffiore said. “We have [New] Jersey fans, we have Pennsylvania suburbs fans, and then we have Philadelphia fans.”
Maffiore who was born and raised in Pennsylvania now finds herself rooting for the Packers every week.
She shares what it has been like to work at a bar full of green and gold clients.
“They are great, they are the nicest fans I’ve ever met in my life. I have bartended for them, I have served them, I have come in to join them. Everybody is friends, everybody is family. We actually have started to watch people grow lifelong friendships, sometimes marriages from coming to MilkBoy for Packers games,” Maffiore said. "Sometimes it will be some random Sunday in July and we’ll get some guy by himself at the bar asking if we are a Packers fan. He’ll say he just moved here and then sure enough we’ll see him come Football season and now he has a whole group of best friends. We see a lot of life-long friendships form.”
Watch the videos belows, it looks fun.
Maffiore says one of the most surprising things from her time working at this bar is seeing how many customers who come in are actually originally from Wisconsin.
“There are actually a ton. A lot of people move here,” Maffiore said. “I was surprised to see just how many that is. The majority of the people that come in are Wisconsin transplants and then we get the ones that are Brett Farve fans or whatever and now they’re just fans and they’re from here."
As far as the decor and layout of this Packers-themed bar?
“We have a bar it has about 15 to 20 seats and then we have a restaurant attached. So No matter where you are seated in the restaurant you can see a TV. But it's not a sports bar by any means. So its kind of a chill vibe. When its nice out we do have two garage doors so we’ll pull those up and hang Packers flags from them. Otherwise during the winter months we’ll hang them behind the bar,” Maffiore said.
She say they try to do their best to decorate the bar as much as they can.
“We do have our Packer plaque hanging behind the bar all year round as well as a picture of one of regulars sleeping outside Lambeau field from his first visit there,” Maffiore said. "Another one who just came to the bar, made a bunch of friends from Wisconsin, they took him back home, showed him Lambeau field and now that is artwork in our bar forever.”
And how much more Wisconsin can this Pennsylvania bar get? During halftime MilkBoy serves cheese curds to all the bar-goers.
As far as during this Sunday’s game versus the Steelers, Maffiore says she doesn’t anticipate seeing Steelers’ fans coming into this bar.
“Unless they happen to be married to a Packers fan. Once in a while you do get that like rival marriage come through. But I don’t think we have too much of a Steeler base to be honest,” Maffiore said.
For one couple, they were here at this bar celebrating the beginning of a new chapter in their lives.
Dillon and Steph Weber got married Saturday and decided to come watch the game the next day with their families.
Dillon is from Wisconsin so a lot of his family flew into Philadelphia for the wedding.
The newly weds say coming to this bar is the perfect post-wedding activity.
Dillon who moved to Philadelphia years ago for college says he first found out about this bar years ago because he stumbled upon it.
"I saw they had the big logo Green Bay Packers flags flying, they had their garage doors up and I saw a bunch of Packers fans, I was like this is the place I want to be, let's check it out," Dillon said.
Through the years this bar has even created green and gold shirts of their own.
Click here to learn how you can get your hands on this shirt.
