Attending a Green Bay Packers game in historic Lambeau Field is on the bucket list of many football fans, and the experience absolutely will live up to the hype. There is not a friendlier fanbase in football (even to visiting Chicago fans!), and the small city charm, beautiful stadium, and unpredictable weather create a truly surreal experience.
However, the actual process of visiting Green Bay for a game can be a bit intimidating for outsiders, as there are some trade-offs involved in being the NFL’s
smallest market. It can be tricky to find a place to stay, especially without a local’s understanding of the surrounding communities and bar shuttle culture. And while parking is shockingly easy, it can seem odd to find yourself parking in a random person’s backyard.
Green Bay is above all a party town in a party state. This guide will get you off on the right foot, but once you are out into the Green Bay wild, my best advice is to ask a random stranger for a recommendation. People from Wisconsin LOVE sharing what they like with out of towners. They DESPERATELY want you to see how amazing their state is and will almost provide an enthusiastic recommendation that you would never find otherwise.
Places to stay in Green Bay
The single most difficult part of traveling to a Packer game is deciding where to stay, because hotel rooms on game days sell out almost instantly when they become available. If you are lucky enough to find a spot in town, expect to pay handsomely for the privilege, and expect to pay for the entire weekend as most hotels do not permit
single-day bookings on game day weekends.
The Lodge Kohler is among the fanciest places in all of Green Bay, just yards from Lambeau Field, and features the signature Kohler spa treatments as well. They allegedly sell out for the year as soon as the Packer schedule is posted, but if you’re lucky, and rich enough to score a room here, nothing is more convenient.
If you want to be close to the action without paying spa prices, or you have kids in tow, the Quality Inn on Holmgren is also a perfectly fine hotel with good proximity to Lambeau. Either of these options will allow you to walk to all of the major Lambeau-adjacent bars, restaurants, and other downtown amenities.
But Green Bay is also not your only choice, and if you haven’t planned months in advance, you will need to get creative. Many people prefer to stay just to the South in Appleton, a fine city in its own right. Appleton offers many fine hotel options and importantly, many bar shuttles that will take you right to the game and bring you right back to the hotel afterwards. It’s a short commute, and the next best thing to staying in Green Bay.
Or, if you want to make a weekend out of it, I would highly recommend trucking further North into Door County. Sturgeon Bay and Little Sturgeon are just forty-five minutes from Lambeau and you can often find a cute lakeside cabin via VRBO or Airbnb to take in some nature while not at the game. Some friends and I stayed on the bay side in a cabin for the NFL draft in 2025 and it was an excellent choice, especially considering the traffic into Green Bay is far less severe from the North. In the fall, spending a Saturday in Sister Bay, Egg Harbor, or Ephraim will get you in a nice, relaxed frame of mind for the following day’s game.
Things to do in Green Bay
Before we get to Green Bay itself, I would recommend anyone driving up to Green Bay from Milwaukee (or Chicago) make a stop at the Greenhouse at the American Club in Kohler. The courtyard at the American Club is one of the most beautiful places in the state, and the Greenhouse is one of the best coffee houses anywhere. They also offer ice cream for the kids, perhaps on the way back home.
As previously mentioned, trekking to Door County is a great off-day choice, but Green Bay has plenty to offer as well, including the National Railroad Museum and the Green Bay Botanical Gardens. If you lean to the artsy side, grab some more caffeine at Kompound, and stop by the Art Garage Gallery.
But if you’re here for football, you need to make time for the Packer Hall of Fame. Not every team can pull off something like this, but the Packers are so old, and their legacy so deep that the Packer Hall almost feels like a displaced wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It’s truly like stepping into the past.
And finally, if you do choose to dine at either of my first two restaurant recommendations (foreshadowing!), you should check out the outdoor offerings of the Titletown District, especially if you have children with you. Ariens Hill is famous for sledding when the snow rolls in, but even in nice weather you will find hundreds of kids
running/rolling down it, which they seem to enjoy for some reason. Next to the hill you will find a variety of lawn games like shuffleboard and ping pong, all in the shadows of Lambeau.
Green Bay is a fun town, and the general Green Bay/Appleton/Door County has something to offer for everyone, from families, to outdoorsmen, to city folk.
Best places to eat in Green Bay
Wisconsin loves “BIG” food. I’m not really sure how else to describe a culture that took cheese and decided that it should be deep fried, and also you should absolutely have cheese curds while you’re in town, but you should also have a butter burger, and the place you should get that butter burger is Kroll’s West, just across the street from
Lambeau.
Kroll’s is a Green Bay institution that began as a bespoke burger joint that also cooks a little bit of everything. The kind of place that serves up pizza, hot ham and rolls, sandwiches, fried items, etc. But the butter burger is the reason to go, along with a true sense of what the general Lambeau Field area once was before all of the recent upgrades and development.
Kroll’s sits just outside of the Titletown district and to be fair, they are not completely immune to modernization as their front parking lot now hosts an immense beer garden party complete with a live band before games, but inside, Kroll’s is still Kroll’s.
Over in Titletown, my personal favorite is Hinterland, although there are a wide variety of cuisines available within a short walk, so take a look around before you decide. I know craft breweries are a bit passe at this point, but Hinterland has been making quality beer for thirty years, and Luna Coffee Stout remains one of the best stouts in existence, though if you prefer your beer lighter, there is still plenty to like. More than anything, Hinterland’s cuisine is shockingly good, and I would urge you to try the Italian Meat Pizza with Korean Grilled Short Rib appetizer.
Everyone from Wisconsin has an opinion on the best Supper Club, and honestly, you can’t really go wrong with ninety percent of Wisconsin Supper Clubs (and if you don’t know what a Supper Club is, well, there’s a Wikipedia page). Also, you should go to one while you’re here! Club Chalet in Green Bay is quite good, but lamentably closed on Sundays, so you’ll need to make it part of your pregame schedule. If you want to hit up a supper club post-game, I recommend heading twenty minutes west to nearby Seymour Wisconsin, and the Hotel Seymour Supper Club. Whichever you choose, get yourself a nice steak, don’t fill up on the relish tray, and make sure to leave room for a Brandy Alexander for dessert. And generally speaking, supper clubs make the best Wisconsin Old Fashioneds, so if you haven’t ordered one yet, now is the time.
As a warning, You may need some time to decompress afterwards.
Lambeau Field parking, rideshare, and transit options
While staying in Green Bay can be tricky, parking for a Packer game is almost comically easy, especially if you show up early to take in Titletown or do some tailgating. Even if you are able to acquire a parking pass for the Lambeau Field parking lot, I would recommend forgoing this option and instead engaging in the time-honored tradition of parking in a random person’s backyard.
Nearly everyone with a square mile of Lambeau will be sitting at the front of their driveway with a sign indicating how much it costs to park on their property, and I do mean on their property. You may very well end up in the back yard. Bring some cash with you, and if you plan to tailgate, make sure that the owner allows it as not everyone does. Prices gradually increase as you get closer to the stadium itself.
My family and I used have our regular family tailgate in the parking lot of the Lyndahl Funeral Home on the corner of Ridge St and Lombardi Avenue, and if you do plan to tailgate, the commercial businesses selling parking can be more friendly to the practice than individual homes, but everyone is friendly, and you can always ask the proprietor. Driving to games is not difficult, however it can be dangerous. Wisconsin famously has the nation’s weakest drunk driving laws, and it can be legitimately dangerous after a
game. Green Bay does not offer robust public transit (though game-day buses do run from certain locations) and Uber’s can be in high demand, but if you are planning on doing some drinking, I would highly recommend a bar shuttle.
No matter where you’re staying (including all the way down in Milwaukee) there will
almost certainly be a nearby bar that will happily drive you to and from the game. Most
provide refreshments en route, and even those coming from as far as Appleton will cost
you far less than an Uber.
Tailgating at Lambeau Field
The tailgating scene in and around Lambeau is robust, especially as the weather turns colder. Cold weather to a Wisconsinite is basically a dare, and if anything, it ramps up the intensity of tailgating to another level. Tailgating is also everywhere that it is permitted. While not every parking proprietor allows tailgating, many do, and while you’re walking over to the stadium you will likely stumble across tailgating in public parks, behind business, really anywhere there’s a patch of grass.
Brats and burgers are the staples in Wisconsin, and at any given tailgate, these are likely to be the featured items, especially in the colder months. For noon kickoffs you will also find spiked coffee, beermosas, and without question, the Bloody Mary, preferably with a chaser of pilsner.
Wisconsin is almost as crazy for Bloodies as they are for beer/cheese and it’s not unusual to find elaborate Bloody Mary bar setups at any random tailgate. As the locals say, you can’t drink all day if you don’t start early.
The Lambeau Field Experience
When you do finally arrive, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to get in and walk around (especially as security lines can be quite slow in the half hour before kickoff). Of all the classic stadia that have received glow-ups over the last few decades, nothing compares to Lambeau. It is the perfect blend of historical beauty and modern amenities. I am old enough to remember Lambeau before it was renovated, and while it was still dripping in history, it was also missing out on certain basics like “enough bathrooms.” When the Bears renovated Soldier Field by plunking a modern stadium into the bowels of the old one, they destroyed the historical aspects that made the place special. The Packers did not fall into this trap, and everything about modern Lambeau just seems…right.
I think the most striking thing about your first few steps out of the tunnel to your seats, aside from the green grass, and the always striking gold/green aesthetic, is how the luxury boxes are far above the bleachers, giving the average fan a better view than the rich folks in their nice warm cages. That said, you should either bring a clip-on bleacher seat with a back or rent one when you enter the stadium. Trust me, it will be worth it.
Stroll through the Atrium, check out the Pro Shop for your souvenirs, get some cheese curds, and just take it all in. If it’s after mid-November make sure you wear layers. It may seem cold until you sit next to a husky Wisconsinite in a puffy coat throwing off heat like rocks in a sauna. Zero is cold, but twenty often feels like sixty after a few minutes.
There really is nothing like Lambeau. There’s not really a bad seat in the house, it’s absolutely beautiful, and more than anything, Packer fans (and Wisconsinites in general) are VERY concerned that you’re having a good time, and if you’re not, they will almost all help you out. We all think we are extremely fun, and we are self-conscious that you might not agree. Once, many years ago after a primetime game, some friends and I were trying to buy some beer to take on our shuttle back to our hotel. Liquor stores (with a few exceptions which all Wisconsinites know) can’t sell liquor after nine o’clock, so I just found some nice folks who were tailgating and asked if I could buy a few beers off of them. They gave me a twelve pack of Spotted Cow. Just gave it to me. I’m not sure anything captures the Lambeau – or the Wisconsin experience better.
