The FIFA World Cup 2026 opened yesterday in Mexico City and it does not slow down from here. Dallas is one of 11 United States host cities and AT&T Stadium in Arlington is one of the tournament’s anchor venues — nine matches in total, including a semifinal on July 14 that will be one of the most watched sporting events on the planet. The city has been building toward this for three years. The next five weeks are the payoff.
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Dallas has always been a drinking city. The bars here range from underground mezcalerías hidden behind bridal boutiques to century-old hotel lounges where the bartenders know the difference between a proper Negroni and a lazy one. With the World Cup arriving in June and hundreds of thousands of visitors coming from every country on earth, the question of where to drink becomes suddenly more interesting. Here is the answer, neighborhood by neighborhood. Remember, this is not a directory but rather our suggestions. We can add to this list.
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Dallas is hosting nine World Cup matches — more than any other city in the tournament. Most people watching those matches won’t be inside AT&T Stadium. Tickets are expensive, parking in Arlington is a commitment, and frankly some of the best World Cup viewing in North Texas happens nowhere near the stadium. The city has been building toward this summer for years, and the watch party scene that has developed around it is genuinely impressive. Here is every option, organized by neighborhood and type, so you can find your spot before June 12.
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Addison has more restaurants per capita than any city in Texas and consistently ranks among the highest restaurant-dense cities in the entire country. That statistic surprises people who think of it as a suburb on the way to somewhere else. The Belt Line Road corridor alone packs more serious food — steakhouses, Italian, Southern, Japanese, Mediterranean, Pan-Asian — into a walkable strip than most full cities manage. North Dallas runs alongside it with its own deep roster of neighborhood restaurants that have been feeding Preston Hollow, Park Cities, and the Preston Forest corridor for decades. Together they form one of the most underestimated dining destinations in the Metroplex, and during the World Cup they’ll be well positioned to serve visitors staying at the Addison hotel cluster and the North Dallas hotel corridor along the Dallas Tollway.
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Cedar Springs Road in Oak Lawn is Dallas’s LGBTQ+ district, and it has been since the 1970s. The half-mile stretch between Oak Lawn Avenue and Wycliff Avenue — known locally as The Strip — packs more bars, restaurants, and community institutions into a walkable corridor than any comparable neighborhood in the American South. It earned official state recognition as an LGBT neighborhood in 2018, the first in Texas. During the World Cup, when visitors arrive from countries where LGBTQ+ life ranges from restricted to illegal, Cedar Springs is the kind of neighborhood that reminds people what a city can choose to be. Everyone is welcome here. That is not a slogan. It is the operating condition of the place.
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Most people planning to view soccer think of smoky sports bars, greasy food and cheap beer. However, savvy planners for the most elegant way to watch the world’s largest sporting event will instead call III Forks in Addison to utilize one of the restaurant’s two private dining rooms.
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Uptown Dallas is the neighborhood that runs north from downtown along McKinney Avenue and Cedar Springs Road, and it is the most densely restaurant-packed corridor in the city. The McKinney Avenue Trolley runs free through the middle of it. Most of the major World Cup hotels sit on its southern edge. For visitors who want to stay in one neighborhood and eat well for three days without repeating themselves, Uptown is the answer. It has everything from a Gulf Coast seafood institution that opened the year Gerald Ford was president to a Michelin-starred French bistro that earned its star 48 days after opening. Both are worth your time.
Be mindful that lunch spots may also be great for dinner as well.
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Knox-Henderson runs roughly from the Katy Trail east along Knox Street and down Henderson Avenue, and on a good evening it is one of the most concentrated stretches of good food and drink in Texas. The neighborhood sits three miles north of downtown, bordered by Highland Park to the west and Uptown to the south, and for World Cup visitors it offers something the other Dallas neighborhoods don’t: the full range from a dive bar that’s been there since 1987 to a Michelin-recognized steakhouse, all within comfortable walking distance of each other. Park once. Stay all night.
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