While Portland is not hosting any World Cup matches, residents of “Soccer City, USA” have been showing up at local sports bars in droves to view games.
Away Days and GOL are both located in Southeast Portland and have been hubs for World Cup viewing since the matches kicked off on June 11.
Co-owners of Away Days, Niki Diamond and Pete Hoppins, and co-owner of GOL, Peter Mahr, join us to discuss how business fluctuates during the busy soccer season, and the impact they notice the World Cup has on the Portland soccer community.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed using AI and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Portland may not be hosting any World Cup matches, but soccer fans have been showing up in force and in public to watch the games. This has been great news for my next guests. Niki Diamond and Pete Hoppins are the co-owners of Away Days. Peter Mahr is a co-owner of GOL. They are soccer-focused bars in Southeast Portland. Niki, Pete and Peter join me now. It’s great to have all three of you on the show.
Pete Hoppins: Thank you, Dave.
Peter Mahr: Thanks for having us.
Miller: I want to go around the table before we talk about sort of the business of soccer-focused bar or gathering spot. I’m just curious for a fan perspective first. Niki, is there a moment, a favorite moment that you have of the World Cup so far?
Niki Diamond: Yes. So actually, this is kind of the first time I have been a fan at our own event, which was the last England game where we won against Mexico. I say that with a slightly broken heart because it was very bittersweet to see the Mexico fans go out. They have 100% been the most [fun] fans to have in that whole tournament.
Miller: The most fun fans?
Diamond: Yeah. But as an England fan, to see our team go through to the quarterfinals, and to have a very small but mighty group of England fans in there who really were loud and proud was a lot of fun.
Miller: You say the first time as a fan, so there are no other teams that you support that you get to watch on your TVs?
Diamond: More that it was the first game that I actually stopped, had a beer and watched, rather than working and running…
Miller: Oh, so you weren’t working. It was so important that you could just take your co-owner hat off and enjoy it as a pure fan.
Diamond: Yes.
Miller: Could you fully do that or were you still working?
Diamond: Seventy percent, yes.
Miller: Pete, what about you?
Hoppins: I was lucky enough to snag some tickets to a game in Seattle. So I went up to watch the … Well, you kind of bought the tickets before you even know what the game was going to be. That’s the way FIFA were doing it, but we got tickets to see Belgium vs Egypt. So me, my brother and a couple of mates went up on the train, and we had the time of our lives. It was awesome. Yeah, Seattle did it. To be honest, Seattle did a really good job.
Miller: Was it the kind of thing where, even when you got on the train, it was already essentially a soccer party?
Hoppins: Yeah, I think we got our beer confiscated on the way up and on the way back down as well on the train. It was like a party, for sure. It was packed and there was no AC. Everyone was just up there having a good time. It was super fun.
Miller: And Peter, what about you? A favorite World Cup moment so far, before we get to the business?
Mahr: Yeah, actually, I would say during that same game: England against Mexico. I also had a chance, in the second half, just to sit down with a little group of my friends who were in the corner, and just a bar full of Mexican fans and five English fans. And I watched the game. Mexico was behind, as you know, and they were trying to come back, doing their best, and they did get a second goal. When that second goal went in, just the sound in the bar, the vibe, the loudness and the joy, that was my favorite moment to date.
Miller: All right, so let’s turn to your respective businesses. Peter, I have come to understand that, in addition to a barkeep, you’re a physician, you’re a doctor. Why did you want to run a bar?
Mahr: Yeah, I had no experience running a bar. I’m just a soccer fanatic. I have been all my life. I’ve played all my life. I’ve been to every World Cup, except for the South African World Cup, since the Germany World Cup. So, just a big soccer fan. I used to go to this same particular spot which had a different name, it was 442 at that time. And I watched Arsenal, the Timbers and Euro Championships. I said to my wife, “Well, I want to own that place when I retire.”
The problem was it came up for sale way before I was eligible for retirement, and there was a little bit of an argument about whether we should actually do it or not. And then she said, “Well, if you don’t do it now, then I’ll hear every day for the next 10 years why you should have bought that bar, so just do it.” So that’s kind of how it ended up.
Miller: What’s it been like juggling those two careers: a family medicine doc and owning a bar?
Mahr: Yeah, it’s been a little difficult at times. The great thing about it is I was able to hire some really, really good staff that essentially are super trustworthy, hard workers, friendly and just do their job really well, so that’s made it a lot easier. Also, I was raising two kids and they are out of the house. I’ve substituted a bar and two dogs in their place.
Miller: From an empty nest to a bar in the nest.
Mahr: [Laughs] Yeah.
Miller: Niki, what about you two? How was Away Days born?
Diamond: So we used to actually be neighbors to 442 and GOL. We had an English football pub called the Toffee Club that we opened in 2015. And the original plan was just to have the pub. We missed pub culture from back at home. So it’s very much inspired by that English pub, kind of community hub. We never intended to open a brewery, but there was another brewery that opened up in the space just behind the Toffee Club in the same building. And they got in touch with us about a year or two in to say, it’s not working out. We’re going to try and break our lease unless you would like to take it over.
So, at the time, Pete was working and traveling. We had a 1- and a 3-year-old. So it was a hard no for all of two days, as we then started to talk about what the opportunity might be like to have a brewery, to brew beer, to serve in the pub. It kind of just became this vision of these two businesses that could really support each other. So we decided to take over the lease.
We built Away Days. Then six months later, COVID hit, which kind of threw everything upside down, And long story short, coming out of the pandemic, we closed the pub, but we kept Away Days going. And now we’ve moved from that central eastside location to the Brooklyn neighborhood, to a very local community spot that is just right in the middle of this really wonderful neighborhood. We kind of managed to pull the soccer theme through it a little bit more.
Miller: Pete, you both moved to Portland after living overseas in the UK, Amsterdam – places that have much more of a football or soccer focus. What do you make of the soccer culture here?
Hoppins: Oh, big question. It’s evolving for sure and it’s getting a lot bigger. I think it’s always been there, but it’s always been quite a niche sport. I think the younger generation who are coming through … I think about my son, he’s 9 years old, [and] all these kids, all his friends, that’s all they do is play soccer. They’re obsessed with soccer. They’re not really, I don’t think, following American football, NFL or basketball so much. I think that newer generation, soccer’s their life. And they’ve got more exposure to it as well, not just through school, through clubs here and the Timbers in Portland, but also the English Premier League. It’s everywhere. It’s the biggest league in the world. So I think everyone has more access to that, and especially through social media as well.
Miller: One of the issues with following the English Premier League, for example, or Champions League is just literally the timing. Games could happen anywhere from, if my math is right, 4:00-something in the morning to noon, maybe a little bit later, but still in the morning for Champions League games. And those are during the week. What are your places like at say, 7:00 a.m. on a Thursday, if there is an important match happening, I don’t know, in Berlin? I mean, are your places packed?
Mahr: Well, generally, luckily for us, the early morning games do tend to happen on the weekend, and then prime time in Europe during the week. So, usually the weekday games in the Premier League or the Champions League are happening around noon, which works out pretty well. So we usually open at 7:00 a.m. in the mornings on the weekend, and then for the midweek games, we are open at 11:00 a.m. to accommodate the noontime games. So it works out actually pretty well.
Miller: And for the early morning games, are people drinking beer, or is it coffee?
Diamond: Definitely.
Miller: Oh, still beer at 8 a.m.
Hoppins: Yeah, but it’s part of the camaraderie, I think. And that’s probably why there’s this cultish following, I think for the European leagues, and specifically probably the Premier League, going to a pub at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, that’s a commitment, right? So I think that increases the camaraderie, the support and the cultish behavior around the kind of fandom around soccer. But yeah, it’s quite kind of wild.
Also, you kind of get your weekend started and ready to roll [laughs]. It’s like 9:00 a.m., I’ve already had two beers, watched the Premier League game, and it’s like 11:00 a.m. in the morning.
Miller: [Laughter] I’d be ready for a nap, but maybe people have more energy than I do.
Niki, as this men’s World Cup was approaching, how were you all thinking about what you would do, what you’d offer?
Diamond: Yeah, we started planning this at least a year ago and actually started looking at venues from, it was like September, October of last year. So since we moved from Central Eastside to Brooklyn, our old spot, we could make as much noise as we wanted in the Central Eastside. We could kind of take over the block, as GOL can do.
Miller: Because there were fewer residences right around you.
Diamond: Exactly, yeah, especially on the weekends. But we just knew in Brooklyn we have neighbors that [have] back gardens right up against our patio. So we were looking at warehouses, we toured the Lloyd Center. We were really looking for a space that we could take over and make our own for six weeks.
And then this bank downtown came up. A good friend of ours is the commercial real estate representative for it. And after we had come up against months and months of capacity limits, he showed us the space, and me and Pete walked in, and we were just like, this is epic and incredible. We can just see the bar goes here, the screen goes there. It kind of just really made sense from the beginning. So that must have been in February, March time, and then it was go-time to get planning to put on this massive production.
Miller: Pete, what are some of the logistics that you had to deal with to go from an old bank space to a soccer-watching, sort of pop-up, but semi-permanent venue?
Hoppins: Yeah, it’s a semi-permanent venue. We’re showing every single game, which helps. So your initial investment gets paid off over time. It’s not like you’re just doing a one-off event.
The bank was in really good condition, but there’s nothing really in there. So staffing’s your big one, really. Some games, you’re talking about like 650 people in there, so you’ve got staff for that, and then some games, there might be like 15 people. That’s probably one of the biggest logistical things. There was no walk-in cooler, so we built our own walk-in cooler, like in the back of the bar. We turned the bar, the bank tellers where you kind of traditionally would go and get your money, that’s basically where you now get your beer, with a cooler behind it.
We put a merch shop in there. And we’re downtown as well, so we do have overnight security. But yeah, Nicky can talk more into it. But logistics have been, yeah, something else.
Miller: How has it actually been in terms of business compared to your expectations?
Diamond: It’s been incredible. I think from the start, we thought we would need to really pull people in. I’m sure Peter, the same thing, but the turnout for this World Cup in comparison to previous World Cups has been exponentially greater. It’s in the right time zone, to your point. [In] 2018, I think our alarm went off at 3:00 a.m. every day for a month because we were in at 4:00 to open at 6:00 a.m. every day. So here, the time zones are great. I think everyone is invested in it because of that and because [the] USA is in it.
So no, it’s been fantastic. The turnouts have been amazing beyond what we could have expected, and everyone’s reaction is just incredible.
Miller: Peter, what have you seen at GOL?
Mahr: Yeah, it’s the same thing. We were overwhelmed by the attendance from the start. We thought we’d have an uptick through the group stages and then really get into it in the knockouts. But even from the start in the group stages, just an amazing, overwhelming response from the community. I think I agree that it’s our World Cup. It’s the USA’s World Cup, first time in 32 years, and people want to experience that. And we’re not a World Cup host city, and we’re giving people a chance to experience the World Cup and the vibe of the World Cup at our bar. It’s just been great.
Miller: How big a difference do you think it’ll mean for your bottom lines that the U.S. is now out of it?
Mahr: It’s a little bit of a hit. We’ve had some big names go out. Mexico, [the] U.S. are big supporters, but once you get down to the quarterfinals, semifinals, finals, it doesn’t matter who’s in it. It’s really exciting at that point, and people want to see who’s gonna win that next game.
Miller: Pete, you’re nodding here. So that’s the sense you get as well, especially in the later rounds, it doesn’t matter? You had the big boosts maybe earlier from the U.S. and Mexico, and now people just want to see some of the major teams that are still there.
Hoppins: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it definitely won’t get as many in for maybe this quarterfinal round, I think. But yeah, all the U.S. games were sold out. All the Mexico games were sold out. All the England games were sold out. But I think it depends on the time of day, the day on which teams are playing, basically depending on how many folks are going to show up.
Miller: I’m curious. One of the charming aspects of this World Cup are the various stories of national fans from various countries. Scots come to mind in Boston, where these stories of either people falling in love with various aspects of American culture or Americans falling in love with the charming, slightly drunk or very drunk fans from various countries. And you all mentioned Mexican fans here. Have there been other examples of even small numbers of fervent fans from various teams just making the event better for everybody else?
Mahr: For sure. What comes to mind is the Cabo Verde game against Uruguay at a bar. We had two Cabo Verdeans sitting at the bar, girlfriend and boyfriend, with the flag wrapped around their shoulders the whole game. They certainly did partake of our liquor selection, I would say, and had a great time. And they brought up the vibe in the whole bar. At the end of the game when they actually tied and making it more likely they make it through to the knockout rounds, the woman demanded that I take the flag. I took the flag. I said, “Thank you so much.” I was about to go put it in the corner and she said, “No, I mean you got to put that up right now.” So she demanded I put it up [laughter]. I stapled it to the wall and she said, “I’m coming back Friday. It better be there on Friday.”
So those type of stories have happened throughout the cup, and that’s one that came to mind.
Miller: Niki, Pete was talking earlier about … It seems like we could talk for hours about the differences in soccer culture here versus Europe or other places. But do you get the sense that an event like this World Cup could have a lasting impact on excitement and interest in soccer in Portland?
Diamond: I think so. I think we really see this great mixture of diehard fans – people who have grown up as a fan, it’s in their blood, it’s in their family, it’s in their culture – and then people who come along who are curious and who want to experience it. And I think that’s where [the] USA doing so well in the first round has captured this curiosity about the game and people coming in who don’t have to know the rules. I don’t even still know all the rules of football and I’ve been running football-related businesses for 10 years. I just love the fans and that experience of being with the fans. So I think Pete’s talking about this new generation of kids, but I think there’s a ton of adults as well who have been kind of enchanted by it during this tournament.
Miller: Niki, Pete and Peter, thanks so much.
Hoppins: Thank you.
Mahr: Thanks for having us.
Diamond: Thanks for having us.
Miller: Niki Diamond and Pete Hoppins are the co-owners of Away Days Brewing. Peter Mahr is a co-owner of GOL. They are soccer-focused bars or breweries, both in Southeast Portland.
“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.
