The 2026 FIFA World Cup, with games starting on June 11, is the largest sporting event in North American history. Over 5 million tickets It has already been sold for 104 matches to be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico during the month-long tournament. When not packed into a stadium, the typical place for a crowd to watch a soccer match would be a dark European-style pub or a dingy dive spot lit only by the glare of television screens. The floor is sticky with spilled beer, and the air is thick with the smell of oil from the deep fryer in the back. But recently, the genre has expanded to reflect the realities of fandom itself, with new and engaging spaces that bring better lighting, serve better food, and accommodate new kinds of communities.
Josh Bolock, one of the partners in a new soccer-focused sports bar saccariais a longtime soccer fan who himself frequents New York’s Irish pubs, German beer halls, and standard American taverns. These were usually the locations where international soccer matches were held, even in the morning and afternoon. But he says: “I’ve never felt more beautiful – I hate to say this – than the beautiful game.” He began to think, “Maybe there was another way of looking at it.”
Socceraria aims to open in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in time for the World Cup. It promises to be an intentionally designed space, combining the requisite large screens with even larger windows that flood the room with natural light. “We started looking at Spain, Portugal, Brazil, the Caribbean and Mexico for design,” continues Bollock. “Why can’t it feel a little more tropical? Because that’s where a lot of the people who play soccer are from.”
Chefs Giovanni Cervantes and Tania Apollinar (the duo behind the super popular restaurant Taqueria Ramirez, which was recently named a finalist for the James Beard Awards) will be featuring the Crispy Chicken Tinga Quesadilla. It’s an authentic Mexican cantina that includes all kinds of garnacha, including sopes campechano, served with thick fried masa tortillas stuffed with a meaty mix of asada and chorizo. Trakoyo stuffed with nopales. Of course, it can be paired with classic cantina cocktails like margaritas and micheladas. “It goes hand in hand with these kinds of places,” Apollinar says, especially since soccer is such a big thing for ordinary Mexicans and Latinos.
Dylan Hales, co-founder of One4One, a swanky new sports club and lounge that opened in New York City last fall, says the sport has always been popular among the mainstream, but in recent years the fandom has truly diversified. “A wide range of people are interested, different age groups, men and women.”
Viewing by a wider range of people creates a wider range of tastes. Sports bars are part of a steadily growing hospitality category. Grows with general sports viewershipwith great care.
“It’s obviously really nice to enjoy a space that’s a little more put together, with a thoughtful cocktail program and a nice food menu,” says Hales.
At one4one, guests can order freshly shucked oysters, truffle fries, shrimp cocktails and classic martinis while watching the game from the Art Deco bar upstairs or from the more intimate sectional sofas in the downstairs lounge.
Athena Keke of Clinton Hill
In cities like New York, London, and especially Toronto, just about half of the population Since they are immigrants, it makes sense that there would be places in these communities that create a sense of comfort and familiarity. In many cultures, sports are akin to religion, and even those in the diaspora who cannot afford stadium tickets need a place of worship.
“We get a lot of local Japanese sports fans,” says Jeffrey Chu, owner of a baseball-themed restaurant in Toronto. chicken wing house. The tavern and sports bar, which attracts local sports fans as well as recreational sports teams (including the Japanese-Canadian soccer team sponsored by chicken wing jerseys), is decorated with Blue Jays merchandise and other baseball paraphernalia, as well as manager Yo Ono’s personal collection. Tebasaki offers Japanese-style chicken wings tossed with kelp salt and yuzu pepper lemon pepper, as well as classic izakaya staples like takoyaki, chashu, and ramen, all of which can be washed down with a bottle of sake and Sapporo tap water.
Further downtown, Thai boxing and mixed martial arts (MMA) fans gather. Muay Thai Bar and RestaurantThere, you can order a Crying Tiger Picanha, sip on an ice-cold Singha beer, and watch your favorite fighters kick, slam, and block their way to amateur or championship titles. For restaurateur Thanyaporn Thintanasan and her husband, chef Inchai Tabun, the goal was not just to provide a venue for spectators, but to create a place to experience Thai culture through food and this once-niche martial art that is slowly becoming mainstream.
Similar to Muay Thai bars and restaurants, this emerging class of sports bars often caters to an ever-growing number of fans. One4one stays true to its motto (“All sports for everyone”), hosting watch parties for March Madness and the Super Bowl, but also showing Formula 1 Grand Prix races, PGA tournaments like the Masters, and even sailing. And, of course, the world of women’s sports is booming.
“I’ve definitely heard people say, ‘Wait, there’s no women’s hockey?'” said Al Murray, who runs a women’s sports bar. athena keke‘s With her life partner Klau Capriles. But she’s glad that the sports bar in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill, named after their cat, is offering customers what she calls “vision-expanding moments.”
Most of all, she’s grateful to have opened a place where women, gay people, and neighbors can “enjoy space and company without feeling weird.” In 2025, the WNBA broke league viewership records on ESPN, averaging more than 1 million viewers to each game during the regular season. The network estimates that women’s soccer will be among the top five most watched sports in the world by 2030. Capriles, who is from Bolivia, deliberately chose to include Bolivian delicacies such as cuñapes and salchipapa alongside “Baltimore fries” sprinkled with Old Bay seasoning to honor his Malay roots and reflect what home, comfort and family mean and mean to the couple. They want to contribute to the community.
“At times like this, when it can feel really hard to be yourself and feel hopeful, that’s when we need spaces and communities like this the most,” Murray says.
Food, drinks, design, and atmosphere are all important, but what really makes a great sports bar is its ability to bring people together. “I think there’s been a change in the way people behave, the way they go out, the way they interact, the way they socialize,” says Ronnie Flynn, co-founder of Hales One for One. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, influenced by late social media, a post-pandemic world, less interest in drinking, etc. Flynn said the hospitality industry in general is trying to figure out how to ride the wave of change and is “looking at different ways to bring people together.” “For us, sports were a means.”
Chicken Wings Ono fondly remembers the Blue Jays’ run to the playoffs last year as a true demonstration of sports bars. “It was very busy and people didn’t know each other, but they became friends,” she recalls. “Even though they were complete strangers, they hugged, cheered for the same team, and high-fived each other.”
Apollinar hopes the same will be true at Socceraria, a space where everyone, especially Latino fans, will feel welcome and can cheer for their team loudly and proudly. Since many recreational youth and adult leagues play soccer in nearby parks, Borock (all three of his children play soccer) also wants it to become a clubhouse of sorts, where groups, friends and family can celebrate wins, find solace in losses and just hang out.
“For us, soccer is not a fad. It’s something that’s been around forever. We love it,” he says. “We’re not trending, but you know, we want to give people new ways to make sense of everything.”
