When the Blue Jays are on, the TVs at Silks Country Kitchen in Niagara-on-the-Lake are, too.
For sibling owners Jennifer Phelan and Joel Dempsey, who’ve spent nearly 20 years sharing Blue Jays season tickets, baseball isn’t just a pastime — it’s a way of life that’s followed them from behind the bar to behind home plate.
The two have shared season tickets for about 20 years, part of a group of eight fans who’ve held the ticket block since the Blue Jays’ inaugural season in 1977.
Their two seats — section 124, row 5 — sit just behind home plate and have given them years of memories following the team through highs and lows.
Phelan said some of the best moments were being there for Game 7 of the American League Championship Series — averaging six million viewers on Sportsnet and peaking at 8.3 million — seeing award-winning pitcher Roy Halladay pitch and watching their young son refuse to leave, even as the Jays trailed by double digits by the fourth inning.
“There might only have been 10,000 fans to start the game,” Phelan said. It was a Monday night, likely around 2010 — a period when the team was struggling.
“I looked at my son, I’m like, ‘Anytime you want to go, we can go.’”
“He was like, ‘No, it’s OK,’” she said.
It may not have been a game for the record books, “but I will never forget it,” said Phelan.
Each season, the pair donates a set of their tickets to the Red Roof Pasta Dinner and often gives another to charity. They also bring Silks staff or friends to games — last year, organizing a 20-person staff appreciation trip to the ballpark.
Now, with the Jays back in the World Series for the first time since 1993, that same excitement fills their restaurant.
“The energy — like, we’ve seen so many people coming in wearing their Blue Jays stuff,” Phelan said. “One in five people have something on.”
Her group’s ticket rotation means she won’t be in the stands for the World Series. But Phelan said no matter what happens, she’s just grateful to see them play.
“Every extra game we get is a blessing,” she said.
