Boulder May Be A Long Way From South Africa...

... but that doesn't matter to many downtown businesses in Boulder. Many local favorites are bringing the party to the Pearl St area throughout the tournament and encouraging fans to come down by offering food and drink specials.

The West End Tavern opens its doors at 7:45 am on select days and will be offering a beer and cocktail special for each game. The best part? A build-your-own bloody mary bar so you can stuff your drink will all the celery, pickles, and any other fixings you'd like. Other specials? Kentucky Coffee, Wisconsin Lunch Box (which, after further investigation, consists of beer, orange juice, and amaretto taken as a shooter...), and Basilini's. Breakfast burritos and omelets will also be served.

Make it a block party, and wonder down to Centro to catch a few games. Admist screams of "FUTBOL" you'll get to enjoy $2 dollar tacos (I'm a vegetarian, but I hear the duck tacos are simply amazing), $2 Tecate cans, $2 Cuba Libre, and other happy hour specials.

Tread north a few blocks, and hit Italian joint Amante Coffee, who will be opening at their normal 5:45am to televise the games. Italy plays first on Monday the 14th, but Amante will be offering beer and sandwich specials throughout the World Cup as well as 1/2 off wines, $3.50 pints of Moretti, along with other drinks. The coffee shop will also have the tournament brackets posted on the walls so fans can keep track of match outcomes and take note of times for future games. Amante will be playing reruns during down times, so make sure to stop in and catch up if you got too drunk off all the fabulous specials going on and missed last nights game.

If you got too drunk, chances are you were at Conor O'Neils, a personal favorite of my friends and I, who will be bringing some Irish flair to your World Cup celebrations. Even though Ireland didn't make it to the Cup this year, that won't stop the party over at Conor's. They will be opening early for the 8am games, and will be serving authentic meat pies for the USA/England game on Saturday.

A little bit further down the mall is The Lazy Dog, which is sure to be a prime spot to watch all games. With over 40 screens around the restaurant, an 8 am opening, plus specials, you very well could post up here all day and have enough room to bring everyone you know.

As a new intern at DBI, I was really excited to explore all these specials going on. I'm not the biggest soccer fan in the world, but I love seeing all the culture that the World Cup brings to the US. I also get excited just when people say World Cup, because it reminds me of the Quidditch World Cup, and come on, who doesn't love Harry Potter? Please don't comment and say you don't, because I will write back until you are convinced that Harry is God.

...Anyway, my name is Gage and I'm a recent grad of CU originally from Kentucky. Along with really loving Harry Potter, I love my dog Sunday exponentially more, and if you're lucky, you'll hear more about Sunday as my internship progresses here at DBI.

Nice to meet ya'll!

(Just kidding, I don't really have an accent, but to pretend makes things more interesting.) Enjoy the start of the World Cup and make sure to come downtown and support some of our local businesses.

-Gage