Why Dey chants takes over Atlanta sports bar
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The Bobby Cox Room at Hudson Grille may be empty in this picture, but on Sundays, this room is packed with diasporic Bengals fans. Photo: Casey Weldon/Axios
On Bengals Sundays, suburban Atlanta sports bar Hudson Grille turns into a little slice of Cincinnati — jerseys, Who Dey chants, Grippo's chips and all.
Why it matters: In a city of transplants, the Atlanta Cincinnati Bengals Meetup Group has brought a little piece of The Jungle about 460 miles south for the past two decades.
Flashback: Cincinnati native Floyd Dickens III helped start the group after moving to Atlanta in 2006, when finding the Bengals on TV was basically a scavenger hunt.
- Dickens, a diehard who once wrote about the team for USA Today's fan blog network, called bars ahead to see whether they'd show the Bengals.
- Finally, he thought: "Look, I cannot be the only Bengals fan in Atlanta, Georgia."
He wasn't.
Dickens found Joe Hauser on Meetup.com. Four fans met at a downtown bar. Four became 10, then 50, then 100.
- Today, the Meetup group and Facebook page each have more than 400 members.
- "We were just happy that we had more than the four of us," Dickens says.
Why Hudson Grille? "They pay us," managing partner Shawn McClain joked.
Well, kinda.
- About 40 to 50 people typically show up. The Sandy Springs bar provides space, screens and sound.
- Fans bring helmets, bobbleheads, good-luck charms, even Cincinnati chili.
"They've been with us for a number of years, so everyone kind of knows to expect them," McClain says.
- McClain — a Ravens fan, of all people — says run-ins with other NFL fans are rare.
Zoom out: Other displaced fan bases, such as the Chiefs, have found a home here, too.
- Hudson Grille is also an Ohio State hangout, though Saturdays can get spicier in Georgia Bulldog country.
- "People (here) just despise the Buckeyes," says Denny Loewer, a Springfield native who's lived in Georgia for 19 years.
Loewer has a Bengals- and Buckeyes-themed "man cave" at home but still makes the roughly 90-mile trek for some games.
- "It's a slice of heaven," he says. "It's great to have a place so far away from home that we can ... share our fandom together."