Few cities evoke a single notion in the minds of locals and visitors alike as does Green Bay. This is Titletown, home for nearly a century to the Green Bay Packers, a place where streets are named Lombardi Avenue and Holmgren Way, after former Packers coaches. On Sundays during the fall, the streets empty out, as residents (the lucky ones) fill up Lambeau Field. The remaining six days of the week are spent discussing the game just played and sizing up the next. It’s hard to begrudge the city its love of its home team. Green Bay, with a population of 100,000, is by far the smallest metropolis to boast a professional football team, and the only one with a publicly owned franchise. The Packers are, indeed, Green Bay’s, and no one else’s.

But if you happen to find yourself here outside football season, don’t despair. The origins of this industrial city — which is nestled along the banks of the Fox River, at the foot of a bay with the same name — go back nearly 400 years, more than enough time for the town to work up a number of varied attractions. Despite being a port town, Green Bay’s sprawling metropolitan area has a certain landlocked Great Plains quality, with its wide streets and blocks of low-slung, largely modern buildings. Things move slower here, and it takes patience to scope out the town’s charms. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the ready access to fine dairy, fish, beer and produce, eating and drinking figure prominently among pastimes.

FRIDAY

1. A New Old-Fashioned | 5 p.m.

There are worse ways to start your stay than with a cocktail. The Libertine — a block from the river on Washington Street, historically one of Green Bay’s commercial centers — opened in 2012, bringing the craft cocktail movement to Packerland. If you insist, you can get a Wisconsin-style Old-Fashioned (that is, domestic brandy and muddled fruit). But also on offer is a Chinese 5 Spice Dark and Stormy. Prices are kept heartland-low at $8 to $9 a drink.

2. Dinner With Atmosphere | 7 p.m.

After a couple of cocktails, a meal is needed. One of the best dinners in the area is at the Union Hotel’s restaurant in De Pere, a neighboring town just south of Green Bay. Founded in 1883, and run by the Boyd family since 1918, the quaint, three-story stone structure has found a way to survive in the Hampton Inn era of charm-free shelter. (No card keys here, only key keys; and the phone booth works.) Prices are high by Green Bay standards, but the scallops ($28.75) pay off in succulence, and they come with soup, salad, potato and house-made dinner rolls. If a traditional Wisconsin supper-club meal is wanted, the longstanding Kropp’s Supper Club, a 20-minute drive north of the city, is recommended. It’s open only Wednesdays and Fridays in August, but worth the effort for the lake perch and the falls-off-the-bone chicken.