James A.
Yelp
Located near the Medical Center and Rice University in Houston Texas, NRG Stadium is the home of the NFL Houston Texans. The purpose of my quick trip to Houston was to watch the Chicago Bears play the Houston Texans in the 2nd game of the 2024 NFL season. My daughter wasn't able to make the trip, so my sister in law was able to take her place for the game.
It is accessible via public transit light rail, though it took us a bit of a walk to get to the entrance. The walk meant passing by quite a few tailgates in the parking lot. We entered the stadium about 90 minutes before kickoff. All tickets were digital, requiring the use of the Ticketmaster app to get inside via an electronic reader.
There are two ways to get near the top: by taking busy and long escalators or walking the wide ramps. We took the ramps because of the line for escalators...next time, I would wait for the escalators. The ramps are not steep, but extremely long and winding, allowing a large amount of people to use them at the same time, but also making the walk very lengthy. It was easy to find our seats. The seats are typical for a stadium, with decent cushion for the back and the steep incline of each row made visibility good (unless of course the person if front of you is standing up). In our area, there was a good mix of Bears and Texan fans cheering.
It is a retractable roof, great for those rainy nights. This night was clear skies and not too muggy. What's crazy is that the AC throughout the stadium was on full blast so you would pass by these very cold spots in the stadium, while the roof was literally off. I was expecting to pass by any moment a daughter arguing with her frugal dad about why she needed to close all windows when turning on the AC, if the Texans don't do it. Oh...and they use artificial turf.
At halftime, we decided to switch seats. I bought 4 tall boys (2 Coors lights, 1 Corona, 1 Modelo: the best selling beer in the US now). Modelo and Corona are considered imports and cost more than the coors. The total with tip came out under $50 which I guess isn't too bad for concession stand beer. My brother got some brisket nachos which was great to share. Nachos are bad for you, so might as well like it with the cheese flavored food sauce (nacho sauce)...it went very well with the good shredded brisket. Salty and greasy...perfect with the beer.
We left a little early, so didn't experience what the crush of people would have been like on the light rail just afterwards...but at least it didn't require a bus first like it does in Los Angeles.
I was hoping that this game would be the first time I saw da Bears win in person (I've been to quite a few games). Oh well....hopefully next time.