There are tailgates you attend, and then there are tailgates you experience.
If the first stop in our Buffalo Rumblings Tailgate Series, the Bills VIP Tailgate, represented the new, polished, all-inclusive side of game day in Orchard Park, our second stop takes us in almost the complete opposite direction.
No admission ticket. No premium food stations. No open bar.
Instead, there’s a red Ford Pinto, pizza cooked in ways that probably weren’t envisioned by the filing cabinet industry, shots from a bowling ball and, eventually, a grown man getting absolutely drenched in ketchup and mustard.
Welcome to the Red Pinto Tailgate at Hammer’s Lot
And if you’ve been around Bills Mafia for any length of time, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve already seen it, even if you’ve never been there.
Bills fans travel to Buffalo from across the country and around the world, and not everyone can pack a grill, tent, coolers and half their garage for the trip. That’s one of the reasons I’m spending this season highlighting the different tailgate experiences available around Highmark Stadium.
Some are ticketed and all-inclusive. Some ask for donations. Some require nothing more than showing up and introducing yourself. We’ll cover where they are, what they cost, what you need to bring and, most importantly, what you can expect when you get there.
I’ve now attended 102 consecutive Bills games, home and away, and one thing I’ve learned along the way is that you don’t have to arrive in Buffalo knowing everyone. When you’re among Bills Mafia, you’re rarely on your own for long. And few places demonstrate that better than Hammer’s Lot.
The Red Pinto has a new view
The Red Pinto Tailgate has been part of Bills game day for decades, but the opening of the new Highmark Stadium gives this longtime tradition a brand-new backdrop.
Hammer’s Lot sits at 4170 Abbott Road, roughly a couple minute walk from the stadium. For the Bills’ home opener against the Detroit Lions on September 17, Hammer’s Lot officially opens at noon. Parking is $80 per vehicle, first come, first served. There are no parking reservations, so if Hammer’s Lot is part of your game-day plan, arriving early is probably a wise decision.
You don’t have to park there to join the party
This is an important distinction for traveling fans.
The $80 is the cost to park in Hammer’s Lot, not admission to the Red Pinto Tailgate. The tailgate itself isn’t a ticketed event. So if you’re staying nearby, parking somewhere else or simply want to make the Red Pinto one of your pregame stops, you can walk over and experience it.
That’s part of what makes this one so appealing for visitors. You don’t need to purchase an all-inclusive package to see one of Buffalo’s most recognizable game-day traditions.
Just follow the crowd.
Who exactly is Pinto Ron?
You probably know him as Pinto Ron, a nickname founded on a mistake. Over the years the iconic “Pinto Ron” essentially grew out of a media mistake from decades ago. Rather than fight it, he embraced it, and the accidental nickname became inseparable from one of the most recognizable tailgates in professional football.
He and his red Ford Pinto have been fixtures of Bills tailgating for decades. The traditions surrounding the car eventually became almost as famous as the man himself: unconventional cooking methods, bowling-ball shots and, of course, the ketchup-and-mustard ceremony. The Red Pinto Tailgate has been operating in some form since the 1990s and has attracted national media attention along the way.
And that is exactly what you will see on Thursday night as Amazon Prime will be filming the ketchup and mustard ceremony live during their pregame show.
Then there’s Pizza Pete
At some point, someone apparently looked at a filing cabinet and asked whether you could cook in it.
The answer, naturally, was yes.
That experiment evolved into one of the Red Pinto Tailgate’s signature attractions, with Pizza Pete Papagelis turning a filing cabinet into a pizza oven. Over the years, the crew’s cooking equipment has included everything from shovels and watering cans to wheelbarrows and car parts.
At most tailgates, you ask what’s on the menu. Here, you may want to ask what it’s being cooked in.
Expect food coming off the Red Pinto, Pizza Pete’s creations and plenty of other food being passed around throughout the lot.
This isn’t an all-you-can-eat package, though. There’s no guaranteed menu attached to admission because there is no admission. If you’re visiting, I’d still recommend bringing your own drinks and whatever food you need.
Anything offered along the way is part of the experience.
Yes, you can take a shot from a bowling ball
Among the Red Pinto’s many traditions is one that requires a little explaining to anyone unfamiliar with Bills Mafia.
The bowling ball.
The tradition involves pouring a shot into the finger hole of a bowling ball and drinking it from there. Then dropping the ball on the ground and blowing as hard as you can into a horn.
Is it elegant? Absolutely not.
Will your friends understand the picture when you send it to them? Probably not.
But you will have officially checked off one of the stranger items on the Bills Mafia bucket list!
And then come the condiments
If there’s one Red Pinto tradition almost everyone recognizes, it’s the ketchup and mustard ceremony.
Before kickoff, Pinto Ron takes his position while ketchup and mustard rains down from above.
That’s it. That’s the tradition. Trying to explain why doesn’t particularly improve the situation but it continues to draw huge crowds every home game.
An old stadium “tradition” getting a different second act
And because this is Pinto Ron, we’re talking about apparently preserving a piece of the old stadium couldn’t possibly involve something normal. There’s one more surprise, waiting at Hammer’s lot this season a certain very recognizable piece of the old Highmark Stadium has been rescued and repurposed into what may become the Red Pinto’s tailgate newest game day staple.
Let me stop there. Pinto Ron plans to unveil the newest addition to the tailgate and I’m not spoiling this one. You’ll just have to come see it for yourself.
There’s much more happening in Hammer’s Lot
Pinto Ron might be the headliner, and the Red Pinto and Pizza Pete being an all star opening act, but it’s hardly the only reason to wander around. For the Lions game, Hammer’s Lot is expected to feature The Tubgaters, one of Eric Jones’ sand sculptures, Bank on Buffalo giveaways, Bud Light giveaways and an appearance from a former Bills player.
The result is less like an organized event and more like a very large, slightly eccentric family reunion where several thousand additional relatives keep showing up.
And that’s really the point.
Hammer’s Lot offers a much better representation of what Buffalo tailgating actually feels like. Regulars return to the same places. People recognize each other’s families. Food gets passed around. Drinks get shared.
Someone who walked into the lot knowing nobody can find themselves having conversations with people from five different states 20 minutes later.
There’s something especially fitting about featuring the Red Pinto tailgate during the inaugural season of the new Highmark Stadium.
So much about Bills game day is changing.
There’s a new stadium. New entrances. New parking routines. New premium experiences. New traditions will inevitably begin this season and eventually become the stories another generation of Bills fans tells.
But there’s still a battered red Pinto. There’s still Pizza Pete. There’s still a bowling ball. And someone is still going to get ketchup and mustard poured all over them before a Buffalo Bills game.
The stadium changed. Bills Mafia didn’t.
