Ames is about a 65,000 person town of which 25,000 people are gone 4 months per year. Green Bay is over 100,000 and they're all full time residents.
Almost all restaurants in Ames do great on game days. We can all hate on Duff for being a disaster (it is) but guess what? That's where traffic in Ames is at. A good chunk of almost any business making it is location. The Iowa State Center is a poor location outside game day.
If you could anchor the area with Hickory Park or Wallaby's that's one thing because their reputations may be able to overcome the location challenge but neither of them are going anywhere. No national chain is going to jump on being off the beaten path.
You are aware there are many commercial businesses in Ames year-round? This just has to be better than others, none of which would have game days and other events to anchor them.
It’s relative. Ames has less people, but also less competition. Like the Packers, it also has a residential customer base and out-of-town pull that few startup restaurant/bars have. I agree, if you add a smaller P/L entertainment area at ISC, not all current Ames businesses will make it. That no doubt it is concerning those with current investments on places like Duff.
What’s a good location changes is cities. Several similar projects dispute the claim no chain will move off the beaten path. That’s largely the thing with these projects, when you do these things you create a beaten path at the expense of an existing one. Like I said before, to do this would take investment and coordination between the AD, university, and city that exists in college towns like Ames, but rarely in Ames.