The line to get inside Beer Bar began to form around 4:30 p.m. last Monday. Inside, the downtown bar’s wooden picnic tables were mostly full, with some patrons in business casual attire hunched over laptops, others decked out in red, white and blue.

Lauren Kenkel was in the latter group. She had arrived from West Valley City about 30 minutes earlier. The FIFA World Cup game between the United States men’s national soccer team and Belgium’s wouldn’t start for another two hours.

“I had to learn,” she said. “An hour before, you’re cutting it too close.”

This day, she’d gotten in early enough to get a seat inside. It was a big success on a day that the U.S. team saw very little.

Beer Bar has been hosting some of Salt Lake City’s largest World Cup watch parties this year, as its bar owners got permitting approval to set up a big screen and food and beer vendors in the back lot behind their building for every U.S. match.

The addition essentially doubled the bar’s capacity to 748, said owner Duncan Burrell. The games this year have often drawn more than that many people, forcing a queue out front where wannabe patrons wait for space to get in.

Burrell and co-owner Richard Noel had envisioned a beer-focused soccer bar since 2011, when they were working as bar operators for the adjacent (and attached) Bar X.

In 2014, that concept came to life. Beer Bar opened.

The bar regularly hosts Real Salt Lake fans during the MLS season, and for years hosted a bus to the games. Nick Rimando, RSL’s much-lauded former goalkeeper, even owns a stake in the bar.

When it’s not soccer season, the bar has a variety of sports of all kinds playing throughout the year on one of several large projector screens.

If you are a University of Oregon Duck fan, you’re also in luck. Burrell’s mom, Sheri, attends those watch parties regularly, with a reserved table and a prime view of her favorite projector in the northeast corner of the bar. She said while raising her kids in Oregon (including Emmy winner Ty Burrell, who also owns the bar), they were always going from “sport to sport to sport.” That family passion continued into adulthood.

The 87-year-old moseyed into the bar just before the U.S. vs. Belgium start time, chatting with bar staff as she picked up her drink and pushing past the crowds to find her saved seat.

What keeps her coming back? It’s not the beer.

“Mostly, it’s just the camaraderie. It’s just so fun, you know. And I’m not a drinker,” she clarified. “I’ve got ice water.”

Outside, in the afternoon sun beneath a constant spray of mist, Brandon Crouch waited nervously for the game to begin. Around him, tables were starting to fill up.

It was his third time watching the U.S. from Beer Bar this tournament. He arrived around 3:30 p.m., learning from those past games to be early.

The “atmosphere” and “energy” keep bringing him back. He added that it is one of the few bars where he can watch the games on a big screen outside.

And once they start, he said, the tightly packed crowd is engaged — chanting, cheering and jeering as the gameplay requires.

“Growing up as a soccer player in the south, where football is kind of the dominant sport, you want to be in a place where people are enjoying the game with you,” he said. “So it’s always more fun to have that shared experience.”

There have been some World Cups where the bar has lost money from opening early, before it can legally sell alcohol. Noel recalled sometimes they’d open the doors at 7 a.m. so five people could come in.

Hosting these tournament watch parties, he said, is a “labor of love” — one that seems to be paying off during this year’s North America-hosted World Cup.

This year, huge crowds and a good run by the U.S. team has been good to the owners, and a streamlined online ordering system has let more people buy more beer, sausages and fries without the hassle of waiting in long lines.

Although the owners declined to share how much they’ve made, Burrell said, “We’re definitely making money.”

It’s more than that, though, he added.

“This sounds so cheesy, but we just really wanted to do this,” Burrell said.

It has brought the community together, and it seems, he continued, “like we’re really helping Salt Lake.”

The party continues, just in smaller fashion, even after Belgium booted USA from the tournament. France takes on Spain in the semifinals Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Will fans still show?

“Hell yeah,” Kenkel, the West Valley City fan, said. “It’s not even about our team.”

It’s about the vibe.