World Cup boosted the spirits of Denver bars

Stoney’s Bar & Grill is used to hosting viewing parties for large sporting events. So owner Stoney Jesseph didn’t blink when the French-American Chamber of Commerce called to book the space to hold World Cup watch parties for when France would be playing against the likes of Senegal, Iraq and Norway. 

It wasn’t like they were playing against the U.S., so how crazy could it get? For the first game, 80 fans showed up. For the second, it doubled to over 150. Then 300 arrived. 

“I think for the last game, we had 600 France fans,” he says. “We’re 16 years old, so we’re pretty good at preparing for stuff. And it wasn’t like overwhelming, but it was just way more business than we thought would be coming.”

It’s a refrain heard by nearly every bar across the city that hosted World Cup games. Social media videos showed bars like The British Bulldog and The Celtic jammed wall to wall with loud, sweaty supporters cheering every goal. Veteran restaurateur Robert Thompson pushed up the opening of his new soccer-themed establishment BARna in order to welcome fans. And the massive outdoor space at Number 38 helped the RiNo bar become the most visited in the country for World Cup matches. 

“We reached capacity multiple times,” says Number 38 co-founder Spencer Fronk. “The energy, the vibe, the sportsmanship, the culture that was on display from those fans was pretty electric and heartwarming to see.”

The World Cup windfall

Also warming the hearts of Denver bar owners are the resulting profits the tournament helped rake in. Fronk says it was both the best June and best first half of the year in the six years the bar has been in business. Jesseph says business at the original Stoney’s on Lincoln Ave. was double that for a typical mid-June to mid-July timeframe, with that at other Stoney’s locations seeing increases of 50 to 60%. BARna’s Thompson says the newly opened space is 25% ahead of his forecast for the year already. And McGregor Square reported a 70% increase in visitors year over year. 

“It just kept getting better and better and better,” says Jesseph. “People just got bananas coming down the stretch, even after the USA games. It didn’t matter.”

According to every bar owner we spoke to, this World Cup windfall could not have happened at a better time. Whether they run newly opened establishments or have been around for over a decade, all operate in the same challenging business environment facing every bar and restaurant owner in Denver today. What’s more, the summer months of July and August are historically the worst times for their business.

“August is the worst month of the year for the restaurant industry in Denver, and for Colorado,” says Thompson, who should know, having opened and managed other Denver bars like Punch Bowl Social and Thre Saints Revival. 

“The NBA and NHL finals usually can go up to right around July 4, and after that, it is a freaking ghost town,” adds Jesseph. “We’ve whittled down our six to eight week off-season, where it’s slow for the employees, down to like three or four weeks tops.”

“Like a flash mob”

But this spike in sales didn’t come without its challenges. Nothing about the World Cup crowds was normal for the businesses involved, and meeting the demands of fans required some creative pivoting for both new and old bars alike. 

At the top of this list is the fact that most fans watching each game would show up en masse shortly before the start, leading to a crush of orders the likes of which most bars never see on a regular night, let alone a day. 

“It’s like a flash mob,” says Thompson. “They don’t drizzle in. In 20 minutes, 500 people just walk in the door.”

Fulfilling drink orders is just the start of the problems. This kind of sudden rush also presents logistical challenges as well in terms of bodies. 

“What we found is that fans will do just about anything to watch the game,” says Giovanni Leone, owner & managing member at Moodswing, which just opened up in January. “So they were pulling in furniture from our patio. It got so clustered in the middle of our space that we couldn’t run food, we couldn’t run drinks to tables because we just couldn’t get to people.”

So they switched to bar ordering only, setting up multiple lines and POS systems, with staffers fielding orders out front and conveying them to the bartenders. At BARna, the digital POS system failed in the middle of a match, forcing the new team to switch to printed ticket orders on the fly.

“We learned a lot throughout this process, because not many bars can handle 500 people showing up and trying to order it all at once,” says Leone.

Cultural connection

As challenging and rewarding as it all was, it was also a lot of fun, bar owners report, with the crowds bringing out the best in people in ways they’ve not seen before. 

Moodswing, for instance, worked with organizers behind Brazil team games to host a DJ and pre- and post-game programming that kept the party going for hours.

“They would party for 12 hours straight, even more so than the Mexican fans and the U.S. fans,” says Giovanni. “Like, they went crazy … dancing after the games and just hugging each other and families and all that stuff. It was just such an incredible sight to see. I wasn’t expecting a community outpouring from some of these teams to show up, and it was really cool to meet different people that I probably wouldn’t have had the chance to interact with.” 

At BARna, Thompson was pleased to see fans of the losing team simply exiting quietly rather than drunkenly destroying property the way some sports fans can do when properly tuned up. 

“Sometimes when fans lose, and there’s a lot of alcohol flowing, you never know how it’s going to go,” he says. “But the funnest fans we had in here were Mexico fans, and it wasn’t just the Latin community. You know, the white kids, when they put that Mexico jersey on, they were like, nicer and had a better time.”

Another round? 

The big question is — what happens now that the World Cup is over? For the soccer-specific, the next round of business may start even sooner, with the club soccer season starting up as early as mid-August. For others, it’s a time to lick wounds, assess what went right (and what didn’t) and gear up for football season, which kicks off in September. 

All, however, hope that the feeling fans had coming out to watch games together as a community will spill over to other sports, and bring customers back to support surrounding businesses as well. 

“Our pocket of RiNo certainly needed the love,” says Fronk, citing the recent closures of neighbors like the Blue Moon brewpub, Great Divide Brewing and Zeppelin Station food hall. “I know after speaking to a lot of our neighbors, they felt that overflow. They felt that influx of patrons to their business, and really felt like this sort of side of RiNo was again reengaged in the hospitality world. We’re hopeful that that energy continues into the football season.”