New England Patriots
It can be a challenge to find a Seattle restaurant to host the thousands of Washington-based Patriots fans in enemy territory.
Patriots fans in Seattle watch the AFC Championship. Courtesy of the Boston Sports Fan Group of Seattle
Outside of New England, it’s tough being a Patriots fan. Just ask some fellow Boston sports fanatics in Seattle, whose Seahawks will face off against the Pats this Sunday in a Super Bowl match-up.
“Patriots fatigue is a real thing — but not for me,” said Pats fan and former Charlton resident Lee Webb about his Seahawks friends. Webb moved to the Seattle area in 2016, a year after the Patriots beat the Seahawks 28-24 during the 2015 Super Bowl.
It’s not just the fatigue that Patriots fans experience from other football watchers that makes life hard. There’s some animosity specifically in Seattle given the close contest of 2015. Dunkin’ also doesn’t have a single location in Washington State, the birthplace of coffee competitor Starbucks.
And it wasn’t so long ago that the Patriots were great, the best even, a franchise that’s been featured in the Super Bowl the most with 11 games — and it was even a shorter time ago that the winning momentum fell apart, and the team struggled to rebuild.
Now Patriots fans find themselves in a Super Bowl once again, for the first time since 2019. And in Seattle, the 2,100 members of the Boston Sports Fan Group of Seattle Facebook page almost found themselves without a home this Sunday.
Patriots fans of this over-20-year-old group normally have a good enough set-up at Fuel Sports Grill, a sports bar in Seattle. Sure, sometimes they’re forced to sit outside, like Webb said “a lot of Seahawks fans would be happy to know” happened during the AFC Championship.
But the bar located in the heart of enemy territory couldn’t accommodate the projected 80 Patriots fans, possibly more, on Super Bowl Sunday.
“It’s really hard to try to find a venue that will allow us to take over the bar and have it just for Patriots fans,” said Jesse Canton, who runs the social media accounts for the Boston Sports Fan Group of Seattle. She’s not originally from New England, but her family is, so she’s a Boston sports fan lifer by blood.
Patriots fans at Bar Harbor in Seattle.
Canton is also involved behind the scenes in making these watch parties happen for their passionate group of sports fanatics. Their next best spot was a former host of Patriots games, a restaurant with a New England spirit called Bar Harbor — like the town in Maine. The owner, Ben Hodgetts, is from Portland, Maine, originally and is a lifelong Pats fan.
The combination of the pandemic and a few rotten Patriots seasons led him to close his restaurant on Sundays, and because his employees are mostly made up of Seahawks fans, he couldn’t staff the restaurant for this one-off event.
“I feel terrible about not hosting it,” Hodgetts said. “I’m kind of losing sleep over it. I’m getting a lot of emails like ‘Where can I go without getting murdered in Seattle?’”
He was able to offer a peace offering of sorts: Hodgetts is selling lobster roll and clam chowder kits on Saturday so that Boston folks can enjoy their home cuisine on game day. And Bar Harbor has been featuring Super Bowls of Patriots’ past on its two television screens ever since the Pats won the AFC Championship against the Denver Broncos.
Canton said they reached out to a third place that wanted to charge them a pricey $200 per head. They finally landed on Shawn O’Donnell’s, an Irish pub. It’s fitting for a bunch of Boston sports fans that their final-hour hero comes dressed in green and serves pints of Guinness and clam chowder.
The bar typically welcomes Seahawks fans, with one of its locations a short distance from Lumen Field, where the Seahawks play. The O’Donnell family members are lifelong Seattleites, and therefore Seahawks fans.
Regardless, the bar is pulling out all the stops for his Patriots customers this Sunday. For one, the bar will be serving Sam Adams beer and a Patriots-themed cocktail — possibly a “Maye Tai.” And for every pint or cocktail sold of the two drinks, the restaurant is donating $2 to the Jimmy Fund, one of Boston’s favorite charities.
“Patriots fans are seasoned, and what I mean by that is that they’re well-equipped to handle the opposing teams’ fans in a respectful and fun way,” said Shawn O’Donnell Jr., who manages the Pioneer Square location of his family’s pubs, the one that is hosting the Patriots fans on Sunday.
Boston.com reached out to Boston Seahawk Fans group but didn’t hear back in time for publication. According to social media, the place that usually hosts them, Alma Cantina, is hosting them this Super Bowl Sunday, as well as neighboring White Bull Tavern. Both restaurants are fully reserved and are only allowing walk-ins, first come first serve.
What does it say that the Patriots fans’ struggle to find a Seattle bar seat this Sunday was (allegedly) significantly harder than that of Seattle fans in Boston?
It reminds one of a recent notion from Boston sports fan and former Dorchester resident Ayo Edebiri on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
“Everyone is the bad guy, and we are the underdogs.”
But all of the mostly friendly hostility won’t matter if the Pats win — something these “underdog” fans have experienced six times to the Seahawks one victory. And in the end, it’s nice to be with nearly 80 or more like-minded individuals all wearing nautical blue and red.
“We’re all friends, and it’s fun to find similar interests. It’s something that reminds us of home,” Webb said.
Katelyn Umholtz
Katelyn Umholtz covers food and restaurants for Boston.com. Katelyn is also the author of The Dish, a weekly food newsletter.
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