Are businesses along KC’s streetcar line making World Cup money? Yes. . .and no
If one were to guess which businesses in Kansas City have been making bank so far during the 2026 FIFA World Cup — with tens of thousands of fans pouring in from Argentina and Algeria, Ecuador and Curaçao, and more expected this week from the Netherlands and Tunisia — it would seem easy to bet on the businesses downtown stretched along the streetcar line.
But it would not necessarily be a winning bet.
“Fluctuating drastically. From overwhelming to nothing,” Jason Evans, the manager of the restaurant Extra Virgin, located directly on the streetcar line at 19th and Main streets, said of his own business. “I mean we were extremely busy Monday night, Tuesday morning, prior to the (June 16) Argentinian game. Dead for the rest of the week.”
Then came the Friday evening before the Ecuador v. Curaçao match at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday.
They expected to be busy, Evans said, but business was slow to pick up. The restaurant did poorer than most regular Friday nights, until 9 p.m., one hour before they were scheduled to close. Ecuadorans poured in. “We got crushed. The place filled up,” Evans said.
Customers in KC during games, then leave
So it has been — an up and down ride for bars and restaurants all along the streetcar line from the bar-heavy Power and Light District to Union Station, the stop just prior to FIFA Fan Festival being held on the grounds of the National World War I Museum and Memorial.
A spokeswoman for the Kansas City Power & Light District estimates that 100,000 visitors have come to its open-air KC Live! plaza since the June 11 start of the tournament. Revenue is up over a typical summer.
“The tournament has created sustained daytime and weekday activity bringing guests downtown on days and at times that are typically much quieter,” said Dana Fulks, the director of marketing and communications.
Thousands of fans from the Netherlands are expected to descend on the district Thursday for what has become their traditional orange fanwalk and “links rechts” dance, in which followers — dressed entirely in team orange — march, chant and dance side-to-side in a massive parade in support of the team.
It’s often the day before, during, and one day after the fans show for local games that business booms, at least for some.
“Compared to normal, we’re up quite a bit. It’s been really good,” said Chris Pain, store director of Cosentino’s Market, 10 East 13th St. “Especially here, they’re coming in for snacks, beer, pop and water. Our deli sales are up really good, too.”
So are sales of baked goods, he said.
“All in all, it’s been a really good experience for all of us,” Pain said. “The good thing about it, they’re (tourists) coming in really good-natured. Sometimes they’re a language barrier. But we’re making it work.”
Haseeb Vora, a barista at PT’s Coffee, 1310 Baltimore Ave., and at the nearby Protein House, 1345 Main St., said business has been “incredibly busy” during the tournament, but he also mentioned the ebb and flow before, during and one day after matches.
“We’ve been slammed, especially on game days,” he said.
Vanessa Gallego, manager of the Power and Light Chipotle said that, for them, the rush has come at nights, when things become “chaotic and fun.” Although sales are up, she said, the increase has been slight.
“We ere really busy when Argentina was here, and Ecuador and the first game for Mexico,” she said.
Drinking like fish, eating wings
In preparing for the games, Gallego said, the restaurant added 10 workers, primarily for nights and weekends. With closing time at 11 p.m., workers may typically be out shortly after midnight. Now, because of the late-night rushes, they are staying later. Some nights, they have been busy cleaning and closing until 2 a.m.
On Monday, the dining room at Taps on Main, a sports bar at 1715 Main St. in the Crossroads, was mostly empty near noon while 10 of 13 televisions aired the game between Argentina and Austria in Dallas, which Argentina would eventually win, 2-0.
Colby Vincent, the assistant general manager, said that, overall, the World Cup has been good for business — with the rushes, again, related to games at Arrowhead.
“We had a huge crowd with the Ecuadoreans,” he said. “They were drinking like fishes — ate a lot of wings, ate a lot of burgers. They did a lot of their chants inside the building. I’ve definitely noticed an uptick, at least in our industry. The sports bar world, I would say — at least being in the Crossroads — we’ve had an influx of people coming in.”
But that’s not everyone’s experience.
At Insomnia Cookies, 54 East 14th St., employee William Hoffman said the crowd has been decent, but no better than on concert days. On an average day, the shop makes about $2,500 a day, he said, and about $5,000 on a concert day. During the World Cup, he said, they are making about $3,500.
At Tom’s Town Distilling Co., 1701 Main St., the management chose to be politic regarding sales and customers.
“We’re very happy for the city, seeing all the diversity,” management said. “It’s a little different for us. We’re not a sports bar.”
‘Business has gotten worse’
At Anton’s Taproom, 1610 Main St., manager Kyle Miller was more direct.
“Business has gotten worse because all of the locals are staying away from the city. All the locals are staying away because they over-hyped this.” Miller said of city leaders. “ We are not getting any local people — only people from out of town.”
Miller praised the customers from Argentina, Ecuador and elsewhere. He said he believes they have gotten repeat customers from tourists in part because his restaurant chose not to automatically add a 20% gratuity to their prices, as other eateries have done.
Still, he said, “the locals have been avoiding coming down like the plague.” He said he is grateful that he did not choose to hire more workers for the tournament.
On Southwest Boulevard, the managers of several businesses, including a local coffee shop and restaurants, complained recently that the tsunami of visitors and customers that World Cup planners had promised have failed to materialize.
“We didn’t over-prepare,” Miller said. “We figured once we started hearing the crazy hype, we decided to play it by ear. I’m glad we did that. Because there are a lot of businesses that hired and now they’re up a creek. . . .This whole thing is just very reminiscent of COVID, with the mayor mishandling things. That’s my opinion.”
At Union Station, just north of the Fan Festival, most of the tables at the Harvey’s at Union Station were unfilled while the Argentina v. Austria game played nearby on a large screen in the station’s great hall.
A worker there said, as did others, that business has been busy primarily when tourists are in town for the local games.
‘We definitely worked hard. . .It’s paid off.’
Ecuadorian friends Marlon Rios, Regulo De Mora, Julio Cunalata and Mathias Vaca arrived in Kansas City on Friday, for the Ecuador v. Curaçao match on Saturday.
Like many fans, they were following their team, instead of staying in one place for long. They flew two hours from Ambato, Ecuador, to the capital city of Quito. They then flew to New York City to see Ecuador play and lose to Germany. Then they flew to Philadelphia to see them play and lose to the Ivory Coast. From there, they took a 10-hour bus rise from Philadelphia to St. Louis, a decision they regret, after which they rented a car and drove another four hours to Kansas City for 0-0 game against Curaçao.
They stayed with a friend and didn’t eat out much, they said, other than one place.
“We ate at Joe’s,” Rios said, meaning at Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que, 3002 West 47th Ave.
Meanwhile, eight Argentina fans on Monday, dressed in the team’s blue and white striped jerseys, sat at Café Corazón, an Argentinian coffee shop a few blocks west of the streetcar line, 110 Southwest Blvd. in the Crossroads, to watch the team play on television.
Owner Miel Castagna-Herrera said that she began preparing for the games a year go, sending news releases to Argentina and media in other countries, to draw visitors. She said she had been interviewed at least 10 times by Argentinian press.
“We worked hard to get people in here,” Castagna-Herrera said. “We have a whole drink menu, a World Cup drink menu where we took each country that’s playing in KC and researched their classic coffee drink. We definitely worked hard. We knew it wasn’t going to happen organically. So we’ve been trying to create that chatter beforehand.”
And it has worked, to a degree.
“Our locals are probably not coming around as much,” Castagna-Herrera said. She estimates that her business is up, “a little more than a regular summer.”
“It’s higher than usual, but not terribly,” she said. “But it’s good. We’re happy with it. We worked hard to share our culture with KC — and also with whoever is coming in. So it’s paid off.”
This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 5:15 AM.
