Rubin: Lions and Wolverines and oh, my, it's a good time to own a sports bar
The Detroit Lions had a debt to pay to sports bars. The University of Michigan Wolverines, not so much; they've made the College Football Playoff three years running, and they're favored to win the whole shebang Monday night in Houston.
Steve Mallie opened Mallie's Sports Grill & Bar in Southgate in 2005, though, which means he lived through the bleak years of head coaches Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke and OK, that little dry-ish spell with Jim Harbaugh before thumping Ohio State became so deliciously predictable
Now Mallie has the NFC North champion Lions closing out a triumphant regular season on Sunday and U-M in the spotlight Monday night, and you'd better believe he goosed his standard order of chicken wings for the weekend.
“It’s definitely weird,” he says, for the Lions to be a profit center at the same time Michigan is beating Alabama on New Year’s Day and Holy Smokes Did You See The Defense Come Through In Overtime!
“There’s nothing better than when your team’s winning and that big play happens and you watch everyone in the whole place jump out of their seats,” he says.
Nothing better for business, either.
As a go-for-broke promoter, scrambling to put rumps in chairs and beers in hands during bleak seasons, Mallie used to hand out sledgehammers on Fan Frustration Sunday or offer to pick up every tab in his 300-seat restaurant if the Lions won.
These days, all he has to do is open the door. And hire staff and keep everything clean and make sure nearly 50 televisions are working and sure, it's still a tough business, but it's nice to have the football teams sharing the load.
"Now everyone wants to be a sports bar," he says. Hang a few pennants on the wall, tune into the game, ride the Honolulu Blue wave.
But there's still plenty of business for the places that have been in it for the long haul, through thick and thin and that ludicrous winless Lions season in 2008.
“This is heaven for sports bars,” says Dave Priehs, who bought Mr. Joe’s in Southfield 20 years ago.
He'll staff up for Detroit vs. Minnesota on Sunday and U-M vs. Washington on Monday, and he has ordered a rare delivery of Monday reinforcements for his food supply.
It wasn't that long ago, Priehs says, that six games into the Lions' season, he'd be staffing down.
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Bad seasons, good deals
It's easy to forget ― and probably wise, too ― that the year after the Lions went 0-16, they won only twice.
Back then, Mr. Joe's was offering an enticement to fans bold or bored enough to stick around for an entire game. The number of points Detroit scored became the percentage Priehs lopped off everyone's bill.
"I got burned once," he says, on Nov. 22, 2009, when Detroit beat Cleveland 38-37. But in eight other games, the Lions scored 13 points or less, a small price to pay to keep people eating and drinking until the final whistle.
The best promotion is winning, Mallie says ― and that comes from someone who has set multiple records for building the world's largest cheeseburger, most recently almost 1,800 pounds.
“Whenever the home team wins,” he says, “people want to stay and continue the celebration. We get another hour’s worth of business out of it.”
That's something you don't consider unless your bottom line can get bushwhacked by a fourth-quarter fumble or a bumbling referee who waves off a game-winning two-point conversion against the Dallas Freaking Cowboys because he logs an incorrect uniform number on a deviously effective trick play.
Not that anyone is holding a grudge.
A whopper of a taco
Mallie's background was in construction and snow removal before he opened the restaurant.
In a bit of unfortunate timing, the football team he was counting on to be a meal ticket was so bad that it sometimes didn't sell all its seats, which meant the game in question wasn't televised in metro Detroit.
His response was to haul in junk cars on game days, spray paint Lions slogans on them, and let fans express their frustration with mighty whacks from hammers and sledges.
In other seasons, he'd volunteer to pay the bill of everyone in the joint at the end of the game if the Lions won.
More recently, he'd offer to wipe the pizzas from the bills of everyone who had ordered them if the Lions won. When customers complained that the darned team never did, he said fine, and changed the rules so that he'd pay off if they lost.
Unintentionally, he says, he turned out to have a knack for leaning the right way. But he was willing to take the hit to attract attention and customers.
The game-day offer for 2023 was a simple buy-one, get-one-free for pizzas. That ended at Christmas, when he sold so many two-for-one gift cards he couldn't afford to have customers use them on free pies. But he's still willing to gamble, no matter the day of the week.
Eat three of his $20 2-pound tacos in 30 minutes and he'll not only pick up the tab, he'll throw in a $100 gift card. Knock back a $75, 10-pound burger in an hour or less and that becomes a freebie plus a gift card, too.
Between the two, he says, “we sell dozens a week.”
People are hungry for novelty and good times ― and what's more novel than the Lions on a roll, or better than a national championship?
Go blue, the saloon owners say, in every available shade. And with it: go, green.
Reach Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions and U-M football success means high times for sports bars
