CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The U.S. Women’s National Team will begin its campaign for a third straight World Cup title on Friday.
This year’s games are in New Zealand and Australia, presenting a time zone challenge for bars and restaurants on the East Coast.
Friday’s game is at 9 p.m., but the U.S. women's second game is at 9 p.m. next Wednesday, and then 3 a.m. the following Tuesday.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty big bummer, especially for one of the U.S. games at 3 a.m. that would usually pull a pretty good crowd,” said Lee Glunt, a bartender at Salud Beer Shop in NoDa.
Salud, a growing soccer hotspot since Major League Soccer franchise Charlotte FC played its first game in 2022, is expecting big crowds for the U.S women's first two games.
“I expect that we’ll be pretty busy for it, especially given the standing of the U.S. women’s team and how good we’ve been playing,” Glunt said.
But for the third match at 3 a.m., Salud will not be open.
“It’s definitely a bummer. Even if we wanted to open for it, we wouldn’t be able to,” Glunt said.
In North Carolina, bars cannot serve liquor at that time.
Even the 9 p.m. games are likely to change hours at other sports-watching spots. Duckworth’s many locations across Charlotte are assuring fans they will stay open for the entire game, offering food and drink through the final whistle.
“I do wish that one was in primetime,” Duckworth’s SouthPark general manager Sean Northington said about the 3 a.m. game.
The local restaurant group plans to offer watch parties for the U.S. team's first two games but also will not be open for the early Tuesday morning match on Aug. 1.
Despite battling the clock, Northington said the games will be an opportunity to grow the customer base.
“Being a new location in SouthPark, we’ve noticed all year long we’re still trying to get — every day we find people that haven’t been here before or didn’t realize we were open. So big events like that will definitely get some new faces in here that hopefully become regulars during football season and the rest of the year,” Northington said.
During the summer, it can be difficult to fill the calendar with games, as many of the country’s major leagues are out of season. That's why Northington and his staff are looking forward to watching the United States the next few weeks.
“It’s definitely a boon, we love to see those kind of things happen, in the middle of the summer, when a lot of people are vacationing and things like that,” Northington said. “We’re really looking forward to it. There’s a lot of buzz behind the team this year, especially with Megan Rapinoe doing her final run.”