The FIFA Fan Festival has officially kicked off in Houston as the 2026 World Cup gets underway, but it looks as if a nearby business has already been red-carded at the start. Popular Houston café Koffeteria on Thursday shared an alarming social media video that showed its business being completely choked off by all the festivities.
Koffeteria’s troubles started roughly a month ago. The bakery and coffee shop at 1110 Hutchins St. in East Downtown was “boxed” in by two very large construction projects: the controversial I-45 expansion project and the FIFA Fan Festival development ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Employees and regular customers soon found that venturing to the critically acclaimed café had become frustrating.
“While many of these plans have been communicated, the projects are overlapping, and create routes that are lengthy and require going through active construction zones,” Andreas Hager, Koffeteria’s operations manager, told Chron in May. “Parking, which has always been a problem, has also been greatly reduced. There are also often city projects happening as well, which are not typically communicated to us, in addition to private construction projects.”
Thursday, it appeared those issues have now escalated. In a post accompanying a social media video, the Koffeteria team said they’ve now effectively been shut off from the rest of the city and the potentially lucrative traffic from visitors to FIFA Fan Fest, which opened to the public the same day just down the street. Barricades were seen at Lamar and Hutchins streets, just a few yards away from the café.
The sight of a dead street feels a wee ironic considering Koffeteria also happens to be an official partner for the festival.
“… the police are harassing our regulars who have to trek past all the bs to get here. To only be threatened by the cops to leave,” Koffeteria’s post continued. “P.s. they put a few food trucks right in front of my door and they told us the city said we were suppose to provide bathrooms for the food trucks. Are you kidding?!!”
In early May, the FIFA World Cup Host Committee announced Football Fiesta, a program that would lure fans to experience the FIFA Fan Festival and also encourage some adventuring in the surrounding East Downtown neighborhood. Multiple bars, restaurants and “creative spaces” were tapped to take advantage of the crowds, including Koffeteria.
Unfortunately, it looks as if there are some kinks to be worked out if Koffeteria’s experience is any indication. Koffeteria and officials with FIFA Fan Fest have yet to respond to Chron’s request for comment.
Elsewhere, some are finding their gamble on FIFA has begun to pay off. Mazen Baltagi, the owner of Chapman & Kirby (at 2118 Lamar St.) has been posting photos of his venue being fully at capacity from visiting fans. Baltagi converted his event space and gastro-lounge into a kind of event destination to catch the eye of folks who weren’t able to visit the festival grounds.
“Chapman is packed. Lets go World Cup!!!” Baltagi wrote.