At the popular Crossroads Grille here, they’re on the verge of doing the previously unthinkable:
Staying open on Super Bowl Sunday next month. During the game.
“For the last few years, we’ve closed at 5 p.m. because you don’t get much of a crowd,” said co-owner Vinnie Newman, who thinks the reverse will prove true here in the Atlanta Falcons’ hometown, should the Birds grab the NFC title Sunday and make it to the big game. “Hopefully they’ll give us an opportunity to stay open.”
Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers is being played at the Georgia Dome, but the heart and soul of “Atlanta’s” team actually lies some 45 miles north in this snug town of approximately 6,000 people.
"The Atlanta Falcons is their name," said Flowery Branch resident Stacey Dickson, "but their nest is here."
So is Falcons Fever in this little Hall County community where the team’s state-of-the-art headquarters and training facility is located — where else? — on Falcon Parkway. The symptoms include:
Constant chatter about the Falcons’ last-gasp win over Seattle, even at Flowery Branch High School, whose football team (also the Falcons) practices in hand-me-down uniform pants donated by their NFL counterparts.
Folks wondering aloud if the Vince Lombardi Trophy awarded to the Super Bowl winner would take up permanent residence here.
The by-now de rigueur "friendly" wager being made between elected officials over the outcome of Sunday's game.
But not the usual elected officials. And definitely not the usual wager. Rather than leave it to their respective states' governors, the mayors of Flowery Branch and Santa Clara, Calif. — the bustling Silicon Valley metropolis where the 49ers have their training facility and offices — made their own bet this week.
They’re literally playing for Peanuts: In the extremely likely event that the Falcons win, Santa Clara Mayor Jamie Matthews will pony up a gift basket full of plush toys and bobbleheads based on the popular “Peanuts” characters (Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock) that roam around his city’s California’s Great America theme park.
Flowery Branch Mayor Mike Miller’s counteroffer is a case of Wrigley’s chewing gum made at the plant — Wrigley’s largest — that’s located within wadded-up Juicy Fruit spitting distance of the Falcons’ headquarters here.
“Santa Clara will have a lot to chew on when the 49ers lose on Sunday, but it won’t be with our gift of gum,” vowed His Honor Miller, who works full time as the head pro at Hamilton Mill Golf Club in Dacula.
Pardon him and the rest of his town for feeling a wee bit possessive — and protective — of “their” Falcons. Flowery Branch’s population has more than doubled over the past decade. Still, it’s not like 300-pound NFL pros don’t stick out here. Residents have grown used to seeing — and politely ignoring — players getting their hair cut, gassing up their cars or picking up groceries near their workplace.
Well, more like pretending to ignore.
“I felt special when I moved here,” admitted Madison Saxon, 15, a Flowery Branch-ian of two years’ standing. She was right near one of Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan’s framed uniform jerseys hanging on a wall at the high school. “One of my friends saw Julio Jones in the drive-thru at Chick-fil-A.”
Yet if the Falcons’ gifted wide receiver bobbled the waffle fries as they came hurtling at him through the pickup window, no one’s saying here. When Roddy White or other players grab a bite to eat at Crossroads, “We tell our employees, ‘Leave ‘em alone,’” said Brenda Harris, whose husband co-owns the restaurant. “We say, ‘Just let them fit in here.’”
Talk about outkicking your coverage: When the Falcons moved lock, stock and jockstrap up I-985 from their cramped Suwanee quarters in 2000, they were mostly looking for room to spread out.
Instead, one Falcons executive said, they’ve been lovingly taken in.
“We’re more like two good friends hanging out together,” chief financial officer Greg Beadles observed. “We’ve just been really good neighbors for each other.”
Like a good neighbor, the Flowery Branch Police Department keeps an eye on the team’s complex whenever they’re not around, Beadles said. And as a member of the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce, the Falcons annually host a meeting that, chamber President Kit Dunlap quips, “is always our most well-attended for some unknown reason.”
Now just imagine what the turnout would be for a Super Bowl parade should the Falcons go all the way.
But where would it be held? In Atlanta or Flowery Branch?
Don’t make Beadles choose.
"I don't know," he laughed. "Maybe we'll have a very long parade route."
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