Copyright postandcourier
“Usually we don't even open up in the daytime during the summer, only for football season,” said Jon Hyde, general manager at The Lucky Luchador. “It almost feels like you're in high school again, truly, like sitting on a bleachers,” said Croft Stoney, a Lucky Luchador patron, former bartender and East Side neighbor. For both Charleston Beer Works and The Lucky Luchador, football fandoms started with a single staff member — a bartender or manager — whose loyalty to an out-of-state team sparked a following. With no NFL team of its own (the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte being the closest), many Charleston bars and restaurants are filled with fans from up north, or serve as ripe ground for recruiting new ones. That was the case with Storey, who became an Eagles fan from working at the bar. “I was born and raised in Charleston, so I was never an NFL fan. I just didn't grow up around it. When the former manager proposed that it was an Eagles bar, I said, ‘I might as well read up on this team for when I’m bartending on Sundays,’ and one thing led to another and I quickly became a huge Eagles fan,” Storey said. Charleston Beer Works declared it would be a Bills-centric bar nearly 20 years ago, when the manager Dave Seitz — who still works there Thursday nights and often does pushups on the bar after a touchdown — pitched the idea. It quickly caught on. Now, the upstairs bar has a collection of Bills memorabilia, bobbleheads and knickknacks fans and staff have collected and brought in over the years. The Lowcountry is particularly active with Bills and Eagles fans, as more people from Northern states move south, a particular recent bump in population from former New York residents due to lower taxes and less expensive housing.
