​The 18th Tailgating Season At The Cat Box

Come join us at the Cat Box for the 2025 season.   
​Parking is free, and donations are accepted on the Fundraising page. 
SATURDAY - AUGUST 9 - JAGS VS. STEELERS
GEN Z DAY - ​BEER OLYMPICS
SPONSORED BY TBA
​CAT BOX OPENS 3:00 pm / BEER OLYMPICS 4:30 pm / MAYBE CORNHOLE TOURNEY TIME PERMITTING /
​ GAMETIME 7:00 pm
The Plan
Hey, party people! The old codgers are going to let Gen Z take a shot at handling the tailgate.  Time for the 'rents to park the helicopters and let the future of America shine! 🎉
You’re officially invited to the ultimate Gen Z‑hosted Tailgate / Beer Olympics, courtesy of the old‑timer crowd who dared to let us take the lead. Get ready to show up, show out, and sip smart:
🏆 Beer Olympics Events
• Beer Dice – throw the dice, roll with it
• Cornhole – toss it like you mean it
• Beer Pong – classic court of champions
🍺 BYOB + BYOBeer
Yes, you heard right: bring your own beer and bring enough beer so us Gen Z’ers can keep the games going. No one's leaving thirsty, and we are drinking yours!
🍕 Food? Nada (Kinda)
This is a zero‑food‑provision Gen Z event—no food contest, no snacks. If you’re hungry, BYOF (bring your own food) or wait 'til the last second and go full Gen Z, shelling out half a day's wages for surge pricing on Uber Eats. Your call.
Bring:
Enough beer for you + some to share
Own food or the Uber Eats app
A great attitude & competitive spirit
Gen Z vibes only: Low‑key chill, high‑key fun, other people's money. Memes, music playlists, and good energy are mandatory.
Adults are watching (they let us plan this 😂), so let’s keep it hype and respectful.

 
 SUNDAY - SEPTEMBER 7 - JAGS VS. PANTHERS
RAE CARRUTH PRISON FOOD DAY & GUS BRADLEY MEMORIAL GOLF TOURNAMENT
SPONSORED BY TODD AND NORMA
​  CAT BOX OPENS 9:30 AM / GOLF TOURNAMENT 10:20 AM / PRISON FOOD 11:30 AM
​GAMETIME 1:00 PM
​The Plan
Since one of the Panthers' most notorious alumni also spent some quality time behind bars, we’re honoring that legacy with a Prison Food Cook-Off — because nothing says team spirit like mystery meat and questionable mashed potatoes.
vChoose any dinner dish from the Florida State Prison Menu (yes, it's a real thing — bless your tax dollars) found in the file:
2024-2025_master_menu_final_10.1.pdf
🧑‍🍳 Whip up six servings of your chosen dish FROM THE DINNER MENU SELECTIONS, following the prison portion sizes. Each entry must include all components of the selected meal. That means no skipping the suspicious slaw or “beef” crumbles. The judges will sample a little of each, and the rest? Well, that’s for the hungry mob.
⛓️ Like in real prison, it’s first come, first served. So if you’re late to the chow line, don’t be shocked if you’re stuck with cold lima beans and sad cornbread.
Unlike prison: no shanks, no soap-in-a-sock negotiations. Please keep it civil, folks.
💥 Oh, and if that wasn’t enough excitement, we’re also kicking off the year with the Gus Bradley Annual Golf Tournament since clubs work well with a prison theme.   This event works rain or shine, just in case some tropical system decides to park itself over Jax, as is customary this time of year.     Time to stretch those arms — and maybe your stomachs, depending on how these meals turn out.
​
 SUNDAY - SEPTEMBER 21 - JAGS VS. TEXANS
TEX-MEX FOOD DAY AND CORNHOLE TOURNAMENT
SPONSORED BY THE ANSLEYS
​  CAT BOX OPENS 9:30 AM / CORNHOLE 10:20 AM / TEX-MEX FOOD 11:30 AM
​GAMETIME 1:00 PM
Cornholer of the Year Qualifying Tournament
The Plan
​With the Texans and their ass-hat linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair coming to town (unless ICE chunks him in Alligator Alcatraz before then), we will crank up the Tex-Mex Cookoff again and kick off the Cornhole season at the Cat Box.
​Here’s how it’s going down:
🎯 CORNHOLE TOURNAMENT
Come prove you’ve got the accuracy of Trevor Lawrence and not the butterfingers of Gabe Davis.   The bracket starts at 10:20am. Bring your A-game and complete the first of two required tourmanents to enter the Cornholer of the Year tournament at the end of the year.
🌶️ TEX-MEX FOOD SHOWDOWN
Think you make the best tacos? Enchiladas? Carne Asada?  Nachos, stacked higher than a fourth-quarter Hail Mary? Cook it, bring it, and compete for a plethora of prestigious prizes.
 MONDAY - OCTOBER 6 - JAGS VS. CHIEFS
CATERED FOOD DAY FROM SOMEWHERE AND BOWLING NIGHT
SPONSORED BY DAVID AND MICHELLE
​  CAT BOX OPENS 4:00 PM / FOOD ARRIVES 5:15 PM / BOWLING 6:00 PM
​GAMETIME 8:15 PM
The Plan
It’s Monday Night Football, and the entire freaking world will be forced to watch the Jaguars play, cause it's too early in the season to flex us out of it again.   
.​Here’s how it’s going down:
🍽️ CATERED FOOD
Since it's a school night, we're going to keep things easy and have food brought in.  More details and costs will be provided as we approach the date.
🎳 TAILGATE BOWLING
Patrick Mahomes sounds like someone dropped a bowling ball on Kermit the Frog's throat, so let's roll with that concept and enjoy some almost prime time bowling before the game.   We will have both lanes kicking and pins dropping.
SUNDAY - OCTOBER 12 - JAGS VS. SEAHAWKS
FLIGHT CLUB FOOD DAY AND CORNHOLE TOURNAMENT
SPONSORED BY THE VONHAGENS
​  CAT BOX OPENS 9:30 AM / CORNHOLE 10:20 AM / FOOD WITH OR THAT HAD WINGS 11:30 AM
​GAMETIME 1:00 PM
Cornholer of the Year Qualifying Tournament
The Plan
The first rule of Flight Club is you don't talk about Flight Club, but you can cook anything in it, so fire it up.   This will be the second of three Cornholer of the Year Qualifying Tournaments, you gotta play to get in the finals.
​Here’s how it’s going down:
🎯 CORNHOLE TOURNAMENT
Crank the arms back up, the bags fly at 10:20 am.   
🍗 FLIGHT CLUB: THE “ANYTHING THAT EVER HAD WINGS” COOK-OFF 🐔🪽​
Bring your best dish made from anything that ever had wings — chickens, turkeys, ducks, quail, pheasants, seahawks, pigeons, Cornish game hens, Ozzy the Osprey, or even that sketchy seagull you swear you hit in Mayport. If it once soared through the sky, flapped a wing, or waddled near a pond looking majestic, it’s fair game.   This is real wings only. If it didn't have a beak, it better have a damn good backstory.
SUNDAY - NOVEMBER 16 - JAGS VS. CHARGERS
GLENN MARRINGER TURKEY FRY AND YARD PICKLEBALL TOURNAMENT
SPONSORED BY TBA
​  CAT BOX OPENS 9:30 AM / PICKLEBALL 10:20 AM / TURKEY DINNER 11:30 AM
​GAMETIME 1:00 PM
The Plan
After a few years off we figured out we missed it and we’re BACK and older which means more turkey farts than ever for the Pre-Thanksgiving Turkey Fry & Side Dish Showdown — Glenn’s favorite tailgate tradition, now with 100% more excitement to have it back in the mix.   Enjoy a great meal ahead of Thanksgiving without the relatives you hate and skip those family dinner table arguments.
​Here’s how it’s going down:
🏓​PICKLEBALL TOURNAMENT
What's more fun than pickleball?   Not much, but Catbox Lawn Pickleball is pretty close.  
🦃 THE DEAL:
We’ll fry the turkeys. Multiple. Because one turkey is for amateurs, and we don’t do amateur hour.
🍽️ YOUR JOB:
Bring the BEST side dish you make. The one that makes people cry tears of joy. The one your coworkers ask for the recipe for but you pretend it’s a family secret.  ONLY. YOUR. BEST.
🚫 NO ASSAROLLES.
What’s an assarolle? Glad you asked.
It’s that mayo-slathered, limp green bean “casserole” your thrice-divorced great aunt brought every year. You know, the one that sat on the table untouched like a soggy tribute to culinary sadness, which she always chalked up to “everyone must be full.”  Let’s be clear:  You can make a million good dishes… but bring ONE assarolle, and you’re branded an ASSAROLE for life.
SUNDAY - DECEMBER 7 - JAGS VS. COLTS
CHILI COOK OFF AND CORNHOLE TOURNAMENT
SPONSORED BY THE BEATONS
​  CAT BOX OPENS 9:30 AM / PICKLEBALL 10:20 AM / CHILI COOK OFF 11:30 AM
​GAMETIME 1:00 PM
Cornholer of the Year Qualifying Tournament
The Plan
We may have done this once before, and if so, we don't do it often.  The schedule lined up nicely, and hopefully it will be a cool December day to bring the heat, stir the pot, and see who has the most rectum-wreckin' chili at the Cat Box.
​Here’s how it’s going down:
💥​CORNHOLE TOURNAMENT
It's the only "sport" you can dominate while holding a beer in one hand and talking trash with the other and this is the last week qualify for the Cornholer of the Year tournament.
​🌶️ CHILI COOKOFF
Bring your secret recipe, your biggest ladle, and your toughest stomach.    Will your chili cause someone to audibly moan “oh dear God” on the first spoonful?    This is a day of meat, beans, spice, and unholy gastrointestinal distress at the game.   ​
SUNDAY - DECEMBER 14 - JAGS VS. JETS
LOICAONO GRAVY ITALIAN DINNER AND FOWLING TOURNAMENT
SPONSORED BY MICHAEL AND LISA LOIACONO
​  CAT BOX OPENS 9:30 AM / FOWLING 10:20 AM / ITALIAN DINNER 11:30 AM
​GAMETIME 1:00 PM
The Plan
With the Jets and the New Yorkers coming to town, it's time for a Fowling Tournament and an Italian Dinner hosted by two people who are absolutely not in witness protection and totally weren’t relocated here after “an unfortunate meatball-related incident in Secaucus.”.  Michael insists he’s making “gravy,” Lisa screams it’s sauce, and now we need you to show up and vote before someone ends up in the trunk of the Buick again.   The good news is you can call it Gravy or Sauce, and you don't have to make a thing.   Michael and Lisa are cooking for everyone because they are great people!
​Here’s how it’s going down:
🎯​FOWLING TOURNAMENT
Fowling is the beautiful, chaotic lovechild of football and bowling—and quite possibly the result of too many beers and not enough supervision at a tailgate.    It’s got the strategy of bowling, the precision of football, and the dignity of… beer pong.  So if you’ve ever thought, “I wish I could combine the thrill of tailgating with the sound of pins exploding and the risk of pulling a hamstring,” fowling is your sport.
​🍝 ITALIAN GRAVY / SAUCE DINNER
You don't have to bring a thing, other than your appetite.   Michael and Lisa are taking care of all the food.    


SUNDAY - JANUARY 4 - JAGS VS. TITANS 
SEASON FINALE EXTRAVAGANZA 
CORNHOLER OF THE YEAR TOURNAMENT
WILD BILLS POST GAME FIELD TRIP
SPONSORED BY ROBERT FRARY
ASSUMING THE GAME IS AT 1:00 PM - PROBABLY NOT GETTING FLEXED
AT BOX OPENS 9:30 AM / CORNHOLER OF THE YEAR TOURNAMENT 10:20 AM / LOBSTERS 11:30 AM
​GAMETIME 1:00 PM
The Plan
There's no bigger tailgate and no better day to honor the legend himself, Mark Trauthwein. He started the tradition of Lobsters at the last game of the year, way back when Lot Z was the place to be, long before the Cat Box was even a dream. And guess what? It’s back again!  
Here’s how it’s going down:
🎯​CORNHOLER OF THE YEAR TOURNAMENT
All you have to do to qualify is play in two of the tournaments during the season.   Everyone who participates will be seeded based on their performance.    Players will be teamed up together based on their ranking for a double-elimination tournament, with the top four teams getting a first-round bye.  The winners get the glory of being crowned Cat Box Cornholer of the Year.
​🦞 LOBSTERS
We will have lobster tails for pre-order.   As the date gets closer, we’ll share a link to place your order. All you need to do is order it and show up to cook it.   
​💃 WILD BILLS 🐂
After the game, we will close out the year with the annual trip to Fairfield Heights' favorite neighborhood bar, Wild Bills.

Cat Box Rules - Enter/Use/Play At Your Own Risk

Unlike the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights, the forefathers of the Cat Box did not have the foresight to set up any guidelines for how things should go.  The process has been fluid, and as needs arise, some general rules are created, for instance, the Asserolle Rule was needed to maintain a certain level of edible decorum. In other instances, a moron hires an attorney and the need for a written rule comes into place because, apparently, common sense isn't a trait possessed by everyone. As they say, never underestimate the power of a stupid person in a large group.   Who knew?  Anyway, now that we have grown to more than three unwritten rules, it's time to start a written list so there is no confusion.   So here they are and their origin.  
 
Rule 1 - The Marringer Brown Act (2008) - Glenn brought a few buddies from work to a Jags Browns game with a 4:30pm kickoff.  Before the game, Glenn asked me to go along with the story that he told his cohorts on the way to the game that he owned the place, which wasn't a problem.  As usual Glenn overenjoyed the tailgate and game and as usual the dear God I gotta get home to help Lisa get the kids to bed moment occurred postgame and he fired up the Malibu for his southbound sojourn to his St Johns County slice of Heaven.   Back at the Box, Glenn’s friends, thinking he owned the place settled in to continue their bender and fire up their doobies to celebrate the Browns win over the Jags with no intention of leaving, despite everyone leaving and the lights being shut off and all of us doing the infamous Mark stretch and key jingle signaling game over.  Donny took one for the team and stayed way past any sensible time for anyone to be in the dark in Fairfield Heights, and as a result the Marringer Brown act was created, which states if you bring friends and purvey the farce that you own the place, and they root for the opponent who beats the Jags, you gotta stay with them til they leave.
 
Rule 2 - The Asserolle Rule (2010) – A common sense rule.  Nobody likes mayonnaise covered green beans.  Nobody likes the dish your great aunt brought for Thanksgiving that was more liquid than solid served in a shallow rectangular dish.   Nobody likes the dishes that get the “I guess people just weren’t hungry” that nobody eats but the same person makes them year in and year out and never gets the clue.   So the rule was made, no Asserolle’s for Thanksgiving tailgate, and it has worked to ensure only good food makes it to this hollowed event.
 
Rule 3 - The Ron Rule (2016) – The food contests are one of the greatest things about the Cat Box and what’s cool about it is that it’s all homespun creations of everyone putting forth their best efforts.   Except one year Ron grabbed a professionally cooked brisket off of the now defunct South In Your Mouth food truck and entered it as his own.   After winning an award for his culinary masterpiece, Mark’s ever astute palette noticed it tasted eerily similar to a South In Your Mouth brisket and contacted Donny to check his suspicions, which Donny confirmed that Ron in fact was a fraud.    Henceforth, any food in a contest not made by the entrant is disqualified from winning an award.
 
Rule 4 - The Moron Rule (2019) – If you are an active participant in an activity or event, there is an obvious risk that something may happen.  For example, if you engage in a game of basketball in the street, you could very easily trip and fall and hit your face on the asphalt.  It’s also possible someone may hit you with an elbow.    It’s also possible someone could shoot the ball and have it take a weird angle off the rim and hit you in the earhole.   In any case, those are inherent risks of engaging in that activity.  The same applies for tailgating or say for example playing human foosball after drinking all day.   If you are injured while participating in a voluntary free organic event with friends, it’s not a person’s fault, it’s not the Cat Box’s fault, it’s part of the risk of participating.   If you happened to be sitting in a lawn chair minding your own business and I hit you in the head with a sledgehammer followed by cutting off your hand with a chain saw, then that one is on me.  So, just so there is no question in the future and everyone understands how this works, and I don’t have to deal with another moron hiring an attorney in the future looking for money from me or the Cat Box, anyone tailgating or participating in any event at the Cat Box does so at their own risk.    The Cat Box is now officially enter/park/play/eat/pee/poop/etc. at your own risk. If you bring a friend or enemy, you are responsible for explaining this to them.  The Cat Box does not maintain insurance to cover injuries suffered there, so if that is a problem, then this is not the place for you.   Attendance and participating at the Cat Box is strictly voluntary and no way coerced by anyone else.   If you choose to be there or participate in an event, you are doing so on your own free will with the understanding there are possible consequences.  If you or anyone you bring to the Cat Box decide to pursue legal action or feel the Cat Box or anyone there has a financial responsibility to you for an injury sustained from a non-malicious action, you and them will be banned from the Cat Box for no less than one year and possibly longer.    

Rule #5 – Don’t Dew That (2023) – In the midst of the Bengals tailgate, a pungent, foul odor resembling the stench Lewis and Clark famously documented in their journal when they stumbled upon the remains of Bigfoot decomposing severed left testicle in the foothills of Oregon’s Cascade Range slowly wafted from the kitchen and encapsulated the Cat Box with it’s distinct and overpowering foulness.   With no confirmed sightings of Bigfoot on the continent, much less Florida, in decades, this had to be something else attempting to murder the nostrils of Fairfield Heights.     A few quick sniffs between fleeting retreats to the outdoors while in the discovery phase of this disaster led to only one answer.  Someone had broken the unwritten rule of all office breakrooms.   Someone was Dewing it.  Someone was microwaving fish.    Henceforth, microwaving fish at the Cat Box, like all other places other than your own home, is herby prohibited and this shall serve as notice not to Dew that again
     
 As an aside and advice, if you don’t for whatever reason have health insurance, despite the government making subsidized health insurance available for people without the means to normally afford it, it’s probably best not to leave the house and if you do, not to come to the Cat Box.

The Cat Box is owned by Kruger Industrial Smoothing of Jax, LLC which maintains no assets other than the property at 1568 Fairfield Place.    Are You In, Inc. is a not for profit corporation that uses the premises by agreement for tailgating fundraising events.  All proceeds from these events are donated to charities or other worthy causes / individuals.   Are You In, Inc. maintains a hold harmless agreement to protect  its officers and Kruger Industrial Smoothing of Jax, LLC from all claims or liability occurring from the events it hosts at the premises.   Are You In, Inc., does not maintain any assets.   Liability insurance is not available for injuries suffered during these events and all activities at 1568 Fairfield Place are use at your own risk events.  All individuals setting foot on site agree they do so at their own risk.

Sponsorships & Donations

We don't charge for parking, but we do rely on donations and sponsorship's of weekly tailgates to keep the Cat Box operating.   All donations are tax deductible through Are You In, Inc, which is a non-profit 501(c)3. 

Sponsorship opportunities include naming rights to one of the nine tailgating functions throughout the year.   Sponsors will receive recognition on the website in addition to e-mail recognition the month of the tailgate, a reserved parking space and thre first eight will receive a locker for storage at the Cat Box.   Sponsorship donations can be made online through the fundraising tab above.

If you can't help with a sponsorship,  you can make a donation for a carload of people for the season to Are You In, Inc. to help offset operating expenses. All remaining proceeds will be used to fulfill the goals of Are You In. Follow the fundraising tab above.

For anyone coming to single games that would like to donate to Are You In, Inc. Follow the fundraising tab above.

Cat Box Pictures

Link To Old Cat Box Pictures

Picture
We got behind in 2012 posting pictures, but will do a better job in the future.   Follow the link below to the Cat Box Shutterfly picture site
http://thecatbox.shutterfly.com/