TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Even though the World Cup is being played hundreds of miles away, it has been driving big crowds to local bars and breweries in Tallahassee, where businesses say watch parties have delivered a summer boost and brought in new customers.<\/p>\n
From the opening whistle to the final celebration, local sports bars have become gathering places for soccer fans looking to experience the tournament together. Several businesses said they expected an uptick in traffic, but were surprised by just how many people showed up to watch matches.<\/p>\n
At Bumpa\u2019s, server Maggie Mays said the tournament changed the pace of what is typically a slower season as college students leave town.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started right around when like all the college people were starting to leave, you know, so it went from completely dead to like so packed. I’ve been making double what I used to make on the normal days compared to World Cup days,\u201d Mays said.<\/p>\n
Staff at Bumpa\u2019s said they are used to serving a crowd of familiar faces, but during the World Cup, regulars have been joined by new customers. Mays said some of those first-time visitors have returned for additional matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve had a few people come in for the World Cup and then come back, because I feel like most people when they come for the World Cup they see how lively it is because it’ll be packed out here, it’ll be packed inside, everyone gets into it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Just five minutes away at Deep Brewing Company, owner Ryan LaPete said the business planned ahead for the tournament but didn\u2019t anticipate the intensity of the local soccer crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we didn’t know was how intense the soccer crowd here in Tallahassee was so that was a good surprise,\u201d LaPete said.<\/p>\n
The large crowds also meant staff had to adjust quickly. With fans arriving all at once for matches, employees learned to manage a different kind of rush than a typical lunch or dinner crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first U.S. game was a big eye-opener. It was like drinking from a fire hose… by the third one we figured out what we needed to do, and we’ve seen a lot of people come back over and over,\u201d LaPete said.<\/p>\n
Business owners said the tournament has helped keep sales strong during what can often be a slower time of year, and they hope the new customers they met this summer will continue coming back after the World Cup ends.<\/p>\n
With the World Cup set to crown a champion this weekend, local businesses are preparing for one final surge of soccer fans. The World Cup final is set for Sunday afternoon, and many Tallahassee bars and restaurants are planning special watch parties for the match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Even though the World Cup is being played hundreds of miles away, it has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-344065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}