Downtown Columbia restaurant says it doesn’t see wide-reaching attendance bump for World Cup, but crowds still gather for USA matches
Melissa Houston
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
With the FIFA World Cup taking place in Kansas City, Columbia was described by some as being a “satellite city” as games occur within the state.
However, local restaurants are not seeing it affect their business as they originally anticipated.
With local bars and restaurants participating in “Kick it in COMO,” a citywide effort to bring the community together to celebrate the World Cup.
The Heidelberg, a popular downtown restaurant, has seen a slight bump in customer traffic compared to the typically slow summers, but it still sees empty chairs during some games.
“It’s summertime; we’re on campus, so it’s not usually a busy time of the year,” said Richard Walls, co-owner of the Heidelberg. “It’s a great time to come visit with extra parking and fewer people out, but you know, there has been some impact.”
Walls said the USA games are bringing in the most traction for his restaurant, and the business has also seen some decent turnouts for Germany, the team it chose to “adopt” for the tournament. Seven businesses were assigned a World Cup team for the “adopt a team” initiative.
“We did have a Germany vs. Ivory Coast game,” Walls said. “We had fans from both sides watching, which was fun. It wasn’t, wasn’t a huge crowd but, there was extra seating. People enjoyed it, they had a good time”
Even with less-than-expected traction, Walls said there is still some for more interest in the matches as the World Cup progresses.
“It’ll be interesting to see as the US and the games get more interesting as we get them in the Round of 32, Round of 16, and on down. So I think there’ll be some, hopefully some growth in the interest,” Walls said.