Rutherford businesses benefit from World Cup surge
Restaurants like Eros Cafe are reeling in crowds with watch parties for World Cup matches.
While 82,000 people were in East Rutherford watching the World Cup match between France and Senegal there are other fans taking it in from watch parties just a few miles away in Rutherford.
Eros Café has become a hotspot for World Cup watch parties. The owner, Dimitri Valavanis installed a big screen TV, turned his parking lot into a seating area and even today had a construction crew installing an awning to keep soccer fans cool in the shade.
Rutherford has also become popular for those with tickets to each World Cup match. There were fans of France dropping off their cars and then taking an Uber, while others may choose to take the train.
News 12 spoke to a couple from Montreal wearing France jerseys getting advice from Chat GPT on the best way to get to the stadium in East Rutherford.
“We asked Chat and he gave us our itinerary for today and that’s how we got here. It’s a really cute town, I’ve got to say we love it," said Laurie Jones.
Jones bought her boyfriend Paul Chauvet tickets to the match for his birthday.
Chauvet said, "We parked here and then we are praying to get an Uber to the game so it’s going to be challenging I think because there’ll be a lot of people, but that’s the plan."
That couple described the rules about getting to the match as complicated but both said it was totally worth it.
