GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – There’s a lot going on in and around Lambeau Field this weekend.
First and foremost, the Green Bay Packers open up their 2025 campaign with a showdown against the reigning NFC North champion Detroit Lions. It’s the first time that the green and gold have opened up the regular season at home since 2018.
“We’ve been doing this for 50 years, and every year this is a special time,” said the owner of Kroll’s West, Mike Wier.
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Wier said that on a typical Packers gameday at Lambeau Field at least 3,000 people will stop by Kroll’s West for a beer, burger, or just to hangout before or during the game. He said these are easily the busiest days of the year for the restaurant.
According to Discover Green Bay, a typical Packers home game pumps in about $15 million into the local economy. This weekend there’s an opportunity for that number to be even higher with several other big events happening around Lambeau Field.
Country music superstar Jason Aldean was at the Resch Center Friday night for a concert. On Saturday evening, there’s a free Black Crowes concert in the Lambeau Field parking lot as part of the Packers ‘Kickoff Weekend’ festivities. It’s scheduled for 5 p.m.
“Sometimes these concerts are good and sometimes they don’t do anything,” Wier said. “So really it’s just the anticipation. ‘The Black Crowes’ are well known, so it might be a little better one this year.”
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Over at Stadium View, the owner tells us they think they’ll see a boost in business Saturday night from ‘The Black Crowes’ concert. They hope the rivalry game against the Lions will attract an even larger crowd than normal on Sunday.
“We’re definitely hoping that this will be busier than normal with just the Lions playing,” said Kroll’s West owner Amanda Watson. “(People are also excited about) the new news of having new people playing (Packers adding Micah Parsons).”
After a long offseason and three preseason games, everybody agrees that they are ready for games that actually matter to begin.
“I mean, we had a preseason and those games were fun, but there’s something completely different about the regular season games for sure,” Watson said, adding that they usually see three times more customers during regular season games than during the preseason.
“The two preseason games weren’t really good this year, one was a rainy bad day, and the other was a Milwaukee package, so the turnout wasn’t as big as normal,” Wier said. “Sunday is going to be the first real test, and Sunday 3:30 games are always our big ones.”
Kickoff is at 3:25 on Sunday afternoon.
