Things to Do in De Pere

Named for the mythical bird famous for its fiery rebirth, the Green Bay Phoenix shares its spirit with many esteemed sports programs, including a women’s basketball team that has been ranked as high as 16th in the NCAA Division I and a men’s squad that has made the NCAA Tournament four times. One of only four Division 1 schools in Wisconsin, the Green Bay Phoenix is a member of the Horizon League and their teams––including men’s tennis and women’s swimming and diving––have brought home a total of 29 league championships over the past decade.

Films still gasping for air from their first runs stop by to grace the screens of Fox Cinema Cafe, a second-run theater with weekend matinees and evening shows. Like a deep-fried VHS of Citizen Kane, the theater combines the best aspects of food and film with servers who deliver handmade pizzas, popcorn, snacks, and sandwiches to patrons’ tables as they watch their movie. Private rooms host birthday parties and corporate gatherings where guests can spread out to play games, unwrap presents, and reenact climactic speed-reading battles from their favorite films.

The crunch of fallen leaves or packed snow telegraphs the motions of warriors hidden in the underbrush on the outdoor fields at Commando Paintball Sports. Paintballs whisper through the air, flitting out from the barrels of Tippmann FT-12 or Piranha markers. The projectiles splatter against two-story forts or hollowed-out vehicles on the three wooded fields, which stay open year-round in almost any weather. On the urban combat field, patrons take cover in any of 20 buildings, including a three-story bell tower perfect for getting a birds-eye-view of opponents. Those seeking tournament-style play compete in a hyperball field designed by expert players. Laser tag keeps clothing clean while still eliciting floods of adrenaline.

The extensive facilities at Bisbee Golf Center, which include a driving range with 40 grass tees and a 5,000-square-foot putting green, set the stage for practice and improvement under the expert eyes of professional teachers. Since opening the center in 1988, owner Jeff Bisbee, a Class A PGA professional, and his father, Doug, a PGA Class A member since 1962, have helped students lower scores and increase their enjoyment of the game through private and group lessons. Their instruction involves thorough analysis of the swing to identify areas for improvement, calling upon computer-aided techniques to break down the swing into its most basic components of backswing, downswing, and bowing to vanquished opponents.

For more than 35 years, Village Lanes has hosted neighborhood bowling-league playoffs, birthday parties, and weekday bowling trips. Whether visitors are barely capable of keeping balls out of the gutter or able to clean rain gutters with a well-aimed bowl, they find their niche at this family-run alley. USBC Silver-certified coach Jerry Polarek encourages his students to achieve their best during weekend and after-school youth leagues, and birthday and corporate parties of all sizes share pizza and celebratory high-fives lane side. After knocking self-satisfied smirks off the faces of taunting pins, of-age guests can share celebratory sips of beer and cocktails at the comfortable lounge or chow down on pizza and buffalo wings at the snack bar.

Snugly situated on a historic 1881 farm once known as the Schwabenlander Homestead, Mulberry Lane Farm takes its name from an ancient mulberry tree that once served as a favorite playplace for the Schwabenlander children. In those days, the 100-year-old tree was so esteemed that the children were not allowed to climb it while wearing shoes. Because of this rule, it wasn’t uncommon to find Lawrence, Harry, Norbert, and their nine other brothers and sisters swinging from its boughs, their shoes respectfully lined around its base.

Today, children still play in the shadow of that mulberry tree thanks to the founders of Green Meadows Farm, the Keyes family. Close friends of the last of the Schwabenlander boys, the Keyes adopted the farmstead and its original brick farmhouse into their petting farm empire in 2005 but gave it its own identity to honor the legacy of the original owners. Guided tours lead groups around the farm on foot and by hayride, where kids and adults are encouraged to interact and swap salad recipes with the goats, chickens, sheep, and rabbits that call the farm home. Along the way, visitors can learn how to milk cows and ride ponies or practice catching a chicken, then swing by the barn to snuggle kittens and Otis, the 900-pound boar. Before departing, visitors each receive a free souvenir in the spring and summer, and those who come in the fall have the chance to pick their own pumpkins from the 6-acre pumpkin patch.