Football fans get a head start on big game with super celebrations in S.F., Oakland

The toughest ticket in San Francisco on Sunday, for a Seattle Seahawks fan, was for one of the 21 seats at the bar at Danny Coyle's on Haight Street.

Grace Guerrero got hers by arriving at 8:30 a.m., which was 3½ hours before the pregame show even started and seven hours before kickoff.

"We were scared we wouldn't get seats," said Guerrero, 26, who came from the Marina with her friend Sage Reagan, also 26. They weren't the first ones there. Owner Brian Coyle opened at 8 a.m., and there were people waiting in front. The college navy and action green jerseys were already lined up when Guerrero and Reagan ordered their first beers of the day, a breakfast Guinness with a water back to go with the Philz coffee they brought with them.

"Only the essentials," Guerrero said, settling in. "There's something about camping out all day, and we heard this was the best Seahawks bar in the city."  "It's the only Seahawks bar in the city," said Reagan, correcting her.

The Danny Coyle's gathering was one of the Bay Area's many Super Bowl celebrations beyond the game in Santa Clara on Sunday, with Oakland hosting a fan zone and watch party.

Danny Coyle's is a football bar with banners hanging from the ceiling, but not that kind of football. It is dedicated to Premier League soccer, and the only Seahawks swag is on people walking in the door, such as Kendra Ramirez, who came in wearing her Seahawks leggings, socks, jersey and jacket, with seven Seahawks sports pins in her bag.

Ramirez, 37, and her husband, Walter, had driven an hour and a half from their home in Oakdale (Stanislaus County), which was nothing compared with the travel route taken by Reed Fife, who had flown in from Paris just to watch the Seahawks in Danny Coyle's.

"Where else can I scream out at the TV and have people call out to me by my first and last name to tell me to shut up," explained Fife, who was in the establishment when it became a Seahawks bar around 2008, a few years after it was opened by Coyle, an immigrant from County Clare, Ireland. Fife credits the transformation to Jerome Zech, who had the audacity to come into his neighborhood bar and ask that one of the 15 TVs be changed from the 49ers game to the Seahawks game, on a regular game day Sunday.

That's all it took to draw in a crowd homesick for the rain. By the time Fife and his buddy Scott Dudgeon found their way here, in 2012, all 15 screens were on the Seahawks game and it was "full blown Hawks fans," he said. "I'd rather be at Danny Coyle's with my community than be at the game itself."

Capacity at Danny Coyle's is officially 49, not counting the two parklets out front, and by 11:30 a.m. there was a steady stream of fans coming in to be greeted by a fist bump from Fife, who normally hangs out at the Moose, an American sports bar in Paris, where the last round of televised NFL games starts at 2 a.m. local time.

"When the Seahawks won the NFC championships, I came out of the bar at 5:30 in the morning, and walked along the Seine." He was so overcome with emotion he called his friend Dudgeon, who took the call in Danny Coyle's, where he was deep into his own celebration.

"I wanted to hear the noise in the bar," Fife said.

Seats at Coyle's were so tight that the owner had to post a sign at the end stool to reserve it for his wife, Karen. He also reserved a table for Erica, Jen and Megan, women who were flying in from Minnesota and Seattle, to meet at Coyle's, their old hangout. The reservation was a necessity in case their flights were late.

At a table at the end of the bar were Petra Haugen, 60, and Jason Lavaysse, 39, mother and son, each in a Seahawks jersey and each with a pint of Guinness. Haugen had driven down from Sacramento, picking up Lavaysse at Point Richmond en route to Danny Coyle's.

"It's nostalgia, for sure," Haugen said of her motivation, while Lavaysse was more to the point. "For me, it's about the f-ing Super Bowl, and we're about to win it," he said, choosing a word his mother did not approve of. Even on Super Bowl Sunday at 11 a.m. in a sports bar, she was not above scolding her son.

"Smart mouth," she said. "He's got a lot of opinions about a lot of things." 

Across the bay in Oakland, residents and out-of-town visitors flocked to the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts, a historic landmark overlooking Lake Merritt, for pregame festivities and the NFL's official watch party. 

All 1,500 seats in the watch party theater were claimed within 24 hours, said Kim Bardakian of the Bay Area Host Committee, which sponsored Sunday's event. 

"Oakland had to be part of it - we always show up," Bardakian said. "Oakland is always in the mix of everything." 

The city's food and culture were on full display Sunday with local businesses, food trucks, nonprofits and sports teams at the event. There were some Seahawks fans from Seattle, but many attendees were local East Bay residents - some sporting Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers gear - simply out to enjoy a sunny afternoon at an event close to home with family-friendly activities, music and good food. 

"It's nice seeing the Bay Area highlighted in a positive way," said Teasara Tubbs of Alameda,  who was headed for the Puerto Rican food tent with her 2-year-old daughter on her hip. 

Among the vendors was Pound Bizness, a pound cake pop-up owned by husband and wife Nicole and Reggie Borders. The cakes are built on a family recipe but customized with fun flavors based on customer requests such as lemon lavender, pineapple coconut and strawberry lemonade. 

"It's a lot of pride for us to be out here," Nicole Borders said. "While everything is mainly happening around San Francisco and Santa Clara, it's giving Oakland the opportunity to showcase what we do best in terms of food, in terms of bringing the community together." 

Eric Rivera, owner of Puerto Rican Street Cuisine, served up heaping dishes of pernil - a traditional slow-roasted pork shoulder dish - with sweet plantains, rice and "the best beans in the Bay," he said. 

With Grammy winner Bad Bunny set to perform at halftime Sunday, Puerto Rico is "going through a global, cultural moment," including music, sports and food, said Rivera, an Oakland resident whose parents are from Puerto Rico. 

"People ask me who's going to win? I tell them, Puerto Rico's winning, the Bay Area's winning - right now, all eyes are on us," Rivera said. "So to be a small part of a big movement … it's a big deal." 

This article originally published at Football fans get a head start on big game with super celebrations in S.F., Oakland.