Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN) - It's already being hyped as, arguably, the biggest game of the NFL season, as the 9-0 Kansas City Chiefs are in Western New York this Sunday afternoon to take on the 8-2 Buffalo Bills.
While the players on the field continue their preparations for the highly anticipated matchup, local businesses around Highmark Stadium are gearing up for, what could be, the busiest weekend in some time.
"The energy is so high, we are expecting a really big tailgate," said Bernadette Singer, operations manager at Prohibition 2020 on the corner of Southwestern Boulevard and Abbott Road. "A lot of people that have already showed a lot of interest in being right over at Prohibition, as we're right next to the stadium over there. I think that it helps that Kansas [City] is coming into this game with zero losses, and I think we're building up that confidence and that momentum that we're going to defeat them."
Right across the street along Abbott Road, Peggy Cerrone, owner of O'Neill's Stadium Inn, is also feeling the excitement surrounding Sunday's big matchup in Orchard Park.
"Our phone is ringing already for tables, for before the game to eat, and just for the weekend. The effect is for the entire weekend, not just for Sunday. So it's great for us," said O'Neill in an interview with WBEN.
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Mark Ebeling, owner of Danny's South at the corner of Big Tree Road and Abbott Road, can also sense the excitement in the surrounding areas, especially with the way the Bills have been playing during their 8-2 run.
"On football Sundays, it's been crazy now. With the Bills winning, it's a good thing for the whole area, it really is. And they seem to be playing like a team. They're doing wonderful," said Ebeling with WBEN.
While Football Sundays in Western New York are always busy and jam-packed with Bills fans for the game, the environment is especially heightened this weekend with the AFC rival Chiefs in town.
"It's like a rivalry team now, like Miami back in the days. It's a good draw, it really is. There'll be a lot of K.C. fans in town, I believe," Ebeling said.
"I think this particular week, the Bills and the Bills fans, they still have that remnants of those feelings of that 13 seconds that we lost to Kansas [City in 2021], so I think it's always like, we have to beat them," added Singer in an interview with WBEN. "I think a lot of people know that, potentially, Taylor Swift might be here, and Jason Kelce might be here. We actually just got their Garage Beer over at Prohibition, so we're trying to lure him into the bar."
One of the elements that make this weekend's game different from the rest already this season is the fact it's a 4:25 p.m. EST kickoff, which is the best of both worlds for Bills fans and the nearby businesses.
"The tailgaters get a little more time to tailgate, but it's not so late that it interferes with the next day's work. It's just a perfect case scenario," Cerrone said. "And then, of course, we just want to beat the Kansas City Chiefs in every way."
Last season, the Bills got the chance to host the Chiefs for a big playoff matchup at Highmark Stadium, but ended up falling just short of a return to the AFC Championship Game. This time around, businesses are expecting an even busier weekend, perhaps the busiest weekend of action in quite some time.
"It's a big game because we got beat last year, and it's going to be such a draw," Ebeling said. "I've had phone calls all day long for campers, for RVs, for limos. You name it, we get it, and we park it. So it's going to be a big game, it really is."
"I think that's what we are gearing up for," added Singer. "The last couple of home games have been pretty busy themselves. I do think that Kansas City is going to be the biggest game of the season.
"I think that the Bills and the fan base is just really wanting a win out of Buffalo. They're going to show up, and they're going to show their support."
Not only is Sunday's time slot a favorable one for Bills fans and local businesses, it's also going to be very nice afternoon weather-wise, with partly sunny conditions expected and a high temperature near 55 degrees.
"It's perfect football weather. People are hyped up, and I really think they just want to see Patrick Mahomes lose," Cerrone said.
"Obviously the playoff games, people aren't giving away their tickets. But look, if it's 20 degrees and 30 mile an hour winds, people are opting to watch it on TV. But nobody's going to opt to watch it at home if they have a ticket. No way. Not with this time slot and with the weather being what it's anticipated to be. So it's going to be great. It's going to be epic."
Ebeling feels Bills fans couldn't have asked for anything better for a mid-November football game in Western New York.
"Last year, it was a blizzard, it was a snow storm. That was cool too, but this is going to bring people out early," he said. "People come out early, get your parking spots, and don't wait for the stadium lots to open up. They wait too long."
No matter whether it's warm or cold, raining or snowing, Singer knows the weather doesn't matter for many Bills fans.
"We're still going to show up. Good, bad, sun, rain, snow, I don't think it's going to affect it either way," she said.
So what measures are local businesses taking ahead of the anticipated busy weekend for the Bills-Chiefs game?
For Ebeling, he's opening his parking lot early for Bills fans come Sunday.
"Even though it's a [4:25 p.m.] o'clock game, I'm opening my parking lot, just to say for everybody, at [8 a.m.] if you want to come down early and get your parking spot," Ebeling detailed. "With that being said, people will be down here at that time, they really will. And they'll just sit here for four or five hours before they go to the game."
Other than that, it's business as usual for Ebeling at Danny's South.
"We go through a ton of wings, and those get ordered in and stuff like that," he said. "I don't want to say the figure we go through, but we go through a lot of chicken wings, more than anybody else. I could say that much."
As for Singer and Cerrone, they're doing what they can to make sure they can accommodate as many fans as possible, while also being well-stocked on the essentials for game day in Orchard Park.
"We did just expand a lot of our patio space, we got Watch Your Step coming in to play the tailgate party, which is really cool. We have the live music in the back, and then the bar in the back," Singer noted. "Opened up some more parking spaces for vendors, local vendors that want to sell their food and their apparel out there. Stocked up on beer, stocked up on all of our food, everything that people need to have a great tailgate. I expect it to be probably the biggest one of the year."
"It's a guessing game, because you have to kind of project what you're going to need, but you're restricted by the confines of where to put all of the product," Cerrone added. "I was talking to my sales people the last couple of days and said, 'I'd like to have 10 more cases of this just to make sure, but I have no place to put it.' How do you put 150 cases of anything somewhere that has to be cold? That's kind of just a little challenge, but it's a good problem to have."