You likely know that football fans have a reputation for drinking a lot of beer. Well, somebody has got to serve it. Actually, in Buffalo you’d be accurate to clarify that most of the drinking is done at tailgate parties well before kickoff. But those thirsty fans still crave beer or alcoholic seltzer or Twisted Tea or Fireballs once they are in the stadium. Anyway, attendees of NFL games are generally surprised to learn that most of the people “working” at the food and beverage stands on game day are volunteers. And that’s where I come in. It was never really a goal to sell beer at a Bills game, but that’s what I’ve been doing..
But first, let me tell you how I started selling beer at Bills games. I am a local veterinarian and have been volunteering for pet charities since graduating from vet school. The charity that I have the strongest attachment to raises money to assist people with limited resources afford care for their pets in emergency situations. It’s a brilliant idea. When you think about it, it’s not the sick pet’s fault that they belong to someone who can’t afford their medical bills. And it’s not the vet’s fault that they can’t just give away services to every pet in need. The vet clinic would eventually go out of business and, in the long run, who would that help? Anyway, a charity like this clearly needs to raise funds and a lot of those funds come from generous citizens willing to give money to help their neighbors’ pets in need. Another way to make some money is to find volunteers willing to work at community events where companies make charitable donations for the products sold. That’s where I come in. Our charity was given the opportunity to sell beer at Buffalo Bills games (and some concerts) at the massive Highmark Stadium in the Southtowns of Buffalo.
There are some hoops to jump through to get to serve alcohol at a sporting event. First you need to find a pool of adult volunteers and get them to do online bartender training. Some of the training was interesting, such as learning to calculate how many drinks it would take for a particular person of a certain size to get intoxicated. As you can imagine, the discussion of social skills and how to refuse an intoxicated person service is both useful and amusing. The stadium, like any responsible establishment, won’t allow you to serve someone who has already had too much to drink. Reasonable policy. Even those of us who like a drink (or three) know that you need limits on alcohol sales. **Self preservation alone reminds me that I have to drive home from the stadium with tens of thousands of fans and I’d prefer them to be mostly sober.
Some Bills fans, as we all know, push their limits. For example, the shirtless guy with a red, white and blue buffalo painted on his chest who is screaming and dancing on a 20 degree day has likely had too much to drink. When this guy staggers up to your beer stand to buy two more 24 ounce cans with two minutes to go in the third quarter, you need to reject his request for more beer with some tact. Telling him “We don’t serve drunks here” is likely going to make him mad, and you really don’t want this guy mad at you. After all, he’s clearly not in a rational frame of mind, is he? A more tactful response to his beer request would be to say “It is stadium policy to not serve people that appear intoxicated.” This works most of the time. It’s not judgemental and puts the blame on the stadium bosses sitting in their suites counting his money. I’ve even had a few patrons smile at this answer and reply that maybe they had drunk enough for one day. The dedicated drinker, however, will likely make another plea. My standard reply is “I am really sorry. I’d personally like to serve you, but if I do they could shut down our whole stand.”
One of the more amusing aspects of the customer service part of this stand is trying to respect the taste loyalties of the patrons. On the first day of serving, one of our younger volunteers was in the process of restocking the coolers when a customer ten years his senior asked him if their favorite fruity seltzer (QB1?) was still available as they searched the selection. He honestly (and tactlessly) replied, “Does it really matter? They all taste like crap.” He obviously broke that rule, but I laughed anyway.
You need to be comfortable with intoxicated people if you are going to work a beer kiosk. Duh? Initially my son was not comfortable. In fact, he was kind of freaked out on the drive into the stadium by the huge twenty-five-year-old guy we saw walking through the tailgating section who was so drunk that his girlfriend was leading him by the hand at 10 o’clock in the morning. For better or worse, I saw this as a “teachable moment” and started to point out that you don’t ever want to be that guy. I started to ask rhetorically; how many drinks does it take for a guy that size to get that drunk? When did he start drinking? Is he even going to remember this game?
Anyway I enjoy drunk people as long as they are happy–and Buffalo Bills fans are certainly happy these days. For the last three years, the Bills have been Super Bowl contenders. Heck, with a couple breaks, they might have won it all and they’ll certainly be in the running for years to come. So on opening day, the stadium was jazzed up. Electric, in fact. Jerseys, face paint, hats, Bills tattoos? Yes. The first time I saw a Bills logo tattoo I was a little surprised. The dedication! This dude was in it for the long haul.
I should add that I was raised by a sports fanatic, started going to San Antonio Spurs games on a weekly basis when I was six years old and spent the next 15 years of my life attending just about every kind of sporting event you can think of. My father took me to the Astrodome in Houston, Dodger Stadium in LA, the Sun Bowl in El Paso, the Humphrey Dome in Minneapolis and even took me to see Pele play in San Antonio when he was with the New York Cosmos – something I am eternally grateful for. I’ve been told that, as an infant, we listened to the Packers win the first ever Super Bowl on Armed Forces Radio while our young family was stationed in Okinawa during the Vietnam War. At my first Bills game volunteering at Highmark Stadium, the nostalgia for the big event came flooding back to me and when the stadium erupted after the first touchdown and 80,000 celebrated to my favorite Isley Brothers song Shout I was hooked (and I honestly swear that I did not know the whole Hey-ey-ey-ey call and return thing). This spectacle was kind of cool, and I was part of it. And I was making money to help my charity help pets. Win, win, win, win!
For clarity regarding what I am about to describe, let me tell you some details about a beverage-only stand. At modern stadiums, a lot of these are “self serve.” By that, I mean that the consumer walks through a serpentine “velvet rope” to a “wall” of coolers loaded about six cans deep with Bud, Bud Light, Blue Moon, Corona, Molson, Labatt, Labatt Light, Twisted Tea, about seven different kinds of seltzer, a few craft beers, and water. I should state these are all 24 ounce cans the buyer selects. Each adult can buy two–stadium policy. People can just hate it when they have told their three friends back in the stands that the next double round is on them. The stand has four registers and is designed for the operators to rapidly scan in the beverages and quickly process credit cards. No cash here. And man can we sell some beer. It’s a little mind blowing when you think that we are one of about one hundred stands in this enormous stadium. The sewer system in Orchard Park must be super-sized to accommodate the half-time bathroom rush.
Serving at the stadium starts slow. We typically don’t sell more than a few beers until about half an hour before kickoff. And then it builds and builds and runs steady through just past half time. It’s funny the signals you start to pick up on. Every pre-game has patterns. The grumbling and booing when the opposing team comes onto the field to warm up. And roars for the introduction of the starting line up for the Bills. The national anthem.
My role at our kiosk has evolved to be to direct traffic and solve problems. And there are always problems. The checkout terminals are prone to crashing and need to be rebooted. Patrons seem to seek me out for finding their section or asking where they might find a beverage we don’t stock. A significant part of practicing veterinary medicine is customer service. Sure, I’m a doctor and treat illness and do surgery but understanding people and treating pets is the job. I’m also always directing and responding to people. I genuinely enjoy leaning over to someone staring a little confused at our wall of coolers. “What are you looking for?” People come to the stadium to have a good time and I want to be helpful–even if they are wearing a Chiefs jersey. To the stadium’s credit, we do carry a variety of locally made craft IPAs, Octoberfests and (real) Pilsners which I am pleased to direct the away visitors to. Saying “Go Bills” to a Patriots fan as I smile and hand them a beer never gets old.
My main mission is trying to move the fans on to the next open terminal and back to their seats. The line gets a little long at times, but the patrons appreciate our efforts to acquaint them with their beer as quickly as possible. I accomplish the movement with a lot of eye contact, body language and hand signals. Body language here is important because the stadium is really loud. I’ve often wondered if I should be wearing ear plugs. Not only does the crowd get loud but there’s also the music . “I Love Rock and Roll,” “Jump,” “We Will Rock You,” the list goes on. But the roar of the crowd for a big play or, louder yet, a touchdown is almost deafening.
One of my favorite parts of game day is clowning around with the opposing team’s fans. One of the last games of the 2022-23 season was against the Miami Dolphins and the stadium had about two feet of snow the night before the game. We’re good at clearing snow in Buffalo but there is no way to get 80,000 seats cleared in a few hours. The stadium was a mess and fans cleaned the snow off their seats only to have their feet buried in snow. Maybe you were there or saw the game on TV. It was hysterical. A lot of fans (the smart ones) were even wearing their snowmobiling suits–which made finding their credit cards a challenge. At times, the stadium looked like the world’s biggest snowball fight. Most of it was good natured, but I suspect that those in Dolphin jerseys were getting more than a little pissed off after getting pelted for the twentieth time with a snowball. Anyway, near kickoff I was chatting with a fan in Dolphins gear while he waited for the next open terminal with both of us wearing about four layers of clothing. Upon learning that he’d flown up from Florida for the game, I questioned “What the hell were you thinking?” He only smiled in return.
The guy came back about 30 minutes later to get another round with the Bills already up 14-0 in the second quarter. As I smiled and greeted him, the stadium erupted in the roar I’d come to know only means a touchdown. The look on his face was priceless as he shook his head and said, “I knew this was going to happen.” “You guys had it coming,” was my reply. “Enjoy your beer. I hope you have a good weekend spending your money in my city.”
We also serve as something of a lost and found with fans bringing us a variety of things. It makes sense. I’m wearing an official-looking stadium jacket. They bring hats and gloves and credit cards and phones. I thank them and hold on to them for a while hoping that the person who lost them will come to the stand looking for it. When they don’t come, I walk the item halfway down the concourse to Guest Services where the friendly folks care for lost items. Anyway, as we were shutting down at the end of the final game of the season (that disappointing loss against the Bengals), a drunken patron brought me a set of dentures. Yes, Dentures! I did not want the dentures and instructed him to walk them down to Guest Services where they would help him connect them with the owner. He declined – and not politely. He set them on the kiosk counter and walked indignantly to the restroom. I was literally in the process of shutting down the stand, counting beers and finishing paperwork so I was happy to let the dentures lay on the counter. It was a couple minutes later when a smiling stadium employee appeared asking if we had a set of missing dentures. I was confused. Was there a Denture Alert Network that I was unaware of? I pointed to the dentures and he quickly packed them up in a french fry box and walked off. Minutes later, the denture’s owner appeared in search of his lost mouthpiece. He had just missed his dentures but they had been rescued by a responsible employee and he would be reunited eventually. The best line of the season would come from a co-worker “How drunk do you have to be to lose your dentures?”
Shutting down the stand at the end of the third quarter is the most crucial part of the day for those of us at the beer kiosk. At this point, we’ve been at the stadium for hours, are tired from working in this small space, carrying cases of beer, working quickly to count, cleaning, restocking, and finishing paperwork. You hope for a close game to keep the fans in their seats and off the roads. If the game is tight or goes into overtime, you drive right out of the employee parking lot with no delays. Leaving the game on the Monday night when the Bills were blowing out the Titans in September (41-7!) was not easy. We were up by twenty points in the third quarter and the roads were packed with happy fans looking to get home for work the next day. It took about an hour to get out of the parking lot.
So, how do you lose your dentures?
Dr Otterson is a veterinarian in Buffalo and is the author of All Creatures Weird and Dangerous, a veterinary memoir about caring for mythical creatures published in 2022 by Guernica Editions and available at a number of local bookstores and online.
