Four years ago, Tino and Ian opened the doors to Empire Espresso right at the start of the World Cup, creating an amazing and diverse community of neighbors who gathered religiously (as early as 4am) to watch the matches. At times, the crowd spilled into the courtyard, with people standing for hours to catch a sideways glimpse of the additional TV they added to help out with the situation. The final match shown in the courtyard behind Empire on the big screen still goes down as one of the best neighborhood events that I’ve ever been to.
This year, and with some internal changes at Empire, Columbia City’s go-to soccer spot is toning it down a bit for the World Cup. The official schedule at Empire (at least for the first week) is as follows:
Thursday June 12 1:00PM Brazil vs. Croatia Friday June 13 12:00PM Spain vs. Netherlands 3:00PM Chile vs. Australia Saturday June 14 3:00PM England vs. Italy 6:00PM Cote d’Ivoire vs. Japan Sunday June 15 12:00PM France vs. Honduras 3:00PM Argentina vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina Monday June 16 12:00PM Iran vs. Nigeria 3:00PM Ghana vs. United States
For those die-hards needing to catch every game, Rookies seems to the place to get your fix:
We are eagerly anticipating the 2014 World Cup that kicks off this month! Rookies will be World Cup headquarters for all south-end soccer fanatics that need a place to comfortably kick back and view any or all of the 64 matches on our 14 HDTV’s during this exciting month-long event. We will open our doors at 8:45 am for all of the early matches and serve up World Cup specials you just can’t beat. Don’t miss out… it only comes around once every four years!
See you on Thursday.
