Stadium View Sports Bar and Grill

My favorite place in Green Bay to tailgate on Packers game day!

The Stadium View is either where you go to get drunk or one of those lunch places you stop at because you're in Ashwaubenon and you don't feel like hitting one of the plethora of chain restaurants on Oneida. I can't speak to the venue as a party zone, but judging from the venue and prices, the trixies go to 'Duzzi's and the older ladies who maybe like country music and guys who drive Harley's go to party at the Stadium View.

It's placed on Holmgren next to two other sports bars and if you blinked, it really wouldn't matter which one you went to. Stadium View has the dubious quality of having a banquet hall attached to it, which means that if you go when there's an event in progress, you're going to have to park a quarter mile from the door to the bar.

Two years after the Green Bay smoking ban and the smell of nicotine has ALMOST cleared from the dank corners of the Stadium View's front bar area. The ladies really work for their tips, covering an acre of bar between the tables and the kitchen, yet always seem to be handy for your single free refill of soda (really, guys, it's fountain syrup, it costs you four cents a gallon... you could just offer free refills like every other sports bar in the city). While the theme is All Packers All The Time, the ample tv screens are typically tuned to some sport or another. On my last visit, though, the primary screens were tuned to some kind of home improvement show touring the homes (CRIBS?) of ultimate fighting champions. They have hot tubs and tanning beds in their bedroom! The more you know.

But this half-assed attempt at a hometown atmosphere only counts so far -- it's the food that matters, right? Well, this is where Stadium View earns its half-hearted review. Sometimes the food is SO GOOD that you want to send a drink back to the chef. And then other times... it's not so much and you look at your dining partner and say "Why did we come here again?" My only guess is that they have several different people working the kitchen and it really matters if you get the good chef or if you get the person who overcooks the hamburgers into hockey pucks and turns the cottage fries into roofing tiles. Also, somewhere along the way, the bar owners assumed that people who like the Packers also love non-stop country music. Not so, guys.

In general, it's cheap eats out of baskets lined with wax paper. If you are looking for a gut bomb, you'll do just fine at the Stadium View. If you aren't working off a hangover and want to actually taste delicious food, I'd hit the place next door and get one of the fresh pizzas at The Bar.

Let me preface this with the fact that I was here in May, so there was no chance of a football crowd. That being said the place was just what it claims, a bar and grill just a stones throw from the hallowed grounds of Lambeau Field. The bar area is large and the table service was fast and efficient. The food was classic pub grub but it was done well and delivered hot. I'm sure this place is rocking during football season.