At Big Charlie’s Saloon, the Eagles vs. Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl is a matchup ‘we never really wanted’

Big Charlie’s Saloon looks like most other South Philly corner bars. There’s wood paneling, a vending machine with snacks and cigarettes, a little octagonal window to let light in by the door. If anything, it’s a little friendlier than average: Plunk yourself down on a barstool, order a frosty Yuengling, and you’re likely to fall into easy conversation with another patron, probably a born-and-raised South Philadelphian. If you’re lucky, the bartender will slide a paper plate of soft pretzels your way.

But Big Charlie’s is also not entirely in league with its close-by competitors. After all, has Michael’s Place or Brothers Two ever been featured in the New York Times and The Athletic — on the same day? Does Grumpy’s Tavern or McCusker’s have an Emmy behind the bar, let alone a Lombardi Trophy?

How did this otherwise typical corner bar gain such fame and following? For loving another city’s football team, the Kansas City Chiefs, with a fervor that perhaps only South Philadelphia could muster. It brought NFL Films to Big Charlie’s twice, in 2003 and again in 2020, to capture just that. It brought Kansas City bigwigs to the bar, including Dick Vermeil and Derrick Thomas. It allowed the creator of this South Philly shrine to the Chiefs — dubbed Arrowhead East — to meet the likes of Joe Montana and Lamar Hunt.

And yet, the media spotlight has never beamed so brightly on 11th and McKean as it has this month, with the impending face-off between the bar’s hometown team and the team it’s dedicated to. The teams have played each other before but never in the Super Bowl. It puts the crew at Big Charlie’s (very much a regulars’ bar) in an uncomfortable position.

“We never really wanted it,” said regular Michael Puggi last week, referring to the Eagles vs. Chiefs Super Bowl. “No disrespect to the Eagles fans, it’s just we’re a small little corner [bar] that’s been here for 40 years. When you have 4 million fans ....”

Puggi and the rest of the bar were sanguine about what a Chiefs win could mean for them. Before it announced it would cancel its Super Bowl plans entirely, Big Charlie’s management had been planning to hire a police detail and pare back the scope of its watch party. “We’re just gonna have a little private party, 60 to 80 people. Usually we had the big party, big TV and bars outside, but we’re not going to do that,” Puggi said. “It’ll be a pretty intense game. We don’t want no trouble, we’re not about that.”

When spots to the watch party sold out in an hour, management’s concerns grew. To accommodate all who wanted to attend, the bar would have to expand the party outside — a scenario that was already off the table. Plus, a large share of those clamoring for tickets were folks outside the bar’s usual orbit.

“With outsiders coming here, Chief [sic] fans, they might not be able to get home if the Eagles win. How are they Ubering? How are they getting to where they gotta go?” manager Laura Sessa told KYW Newsradio.

“It’s sad,” Puggi told The Inquirer by phone after the announcement. He said owner Paul Staico was thinking of others in making the call to cancel.

Puggi, 47, grew up down the block from the bar and met Staico when he was about 17, when Staico “recruited” him to Chiefs fandom. He can recite Big Charlie’s origin story as if it were his own.

“He liked [the Chiefs] since he was a little kid. His father placed a little wager on them in the Super Bowl in 1970 and said, ‘If they win, you get a new bike.’ They won, and he got a new bike. And his father passed away in ‘83 and he took [the bar] over. And he always remembered that red helmet and liked that helmet, and that became his team.”

Puggi has been a Chiefs fan for 31 years now, he said. He doesn’t even keep up with the Eagles anymore, but he understands the ferocity of their fans because it is his own.

“We have the same passion, because we are born and raised here in South Philly,” Puggi said. “The same passion as these fans have for the Eagles, we have for the Chiefs. We root hard. We go crazy. We have good times.”

When word spread that Big Charlie’s would be closed for the Super Bowl, many expressed skepticism on social media — and for good reason. Look at Big Charlie’s family-centric Twitter feed or Instagram profile. Or watch the tape of NFL Films’ 2020 revisit: You’ll see grown men and women watching the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV, eyes glued to the screen, hearts in their throats, transfixed. They shed tears of joy and throw themselves into each others’ arms in celebration when their team wins.

Will South Philly’s band of Chiefs fans stay home on Super Bowl Sunday? I wouldn’t take that bet.