On Monday night, Liam Hallich, owner of Paris 75, a bar at 515 Broadway in North Beach, hosted the Belgian Club of Northern California to watch Belgium vs. United States. On most nights, Paris 75 is a jazz club, but, on this night, it served as a gathering place for the Belgian diaspora to drink Chimay, Tripel Karmeliet, Kwak, and La Chouffe as the Red Devils (as Belgium’s team is known) trounced the much less evocatively named USMNT, aka, the US Men’s National Team.
The Belgian consulate in Los Angeles had identified Hallich’s spot as a watch venue. The crowd was about 100 deep.
“I’m French, but also I like to host our cousins, the Belgians,” Hallich told Gazetteer SF. “The French in general, we all love Belgian beers.”
As the start of the match approached, Paris 75, bathed in a red and pink glow, filled. The crowd booed when “The Star-Spangled Banner” played. During ads or breaks in play for hydration, “On Met La Patate,” an electronic anthem to beer, fries, and all things Belgian that translates roughly to “We Give it Our All,” played.
Forty-eight seconds into the game, American goalkeeper Matt Freese was forced to make a dramatic save of a Belgian shot from way outside the penalty box. The crowd at Paris 75 roared with approval. About eight minutes later, Belgium scored easily off a pass across the front of the US goal. Arms shot to the air, and “On Met” blasted again.
The US leveled the match, 1-1, 30 minutes into the match, but the Belgians were undeterred: Less than three minutes later they retook the lead, 2-1. At halftime, Hallich and his assistants continued pouring beers.
“I love the energy of the Belgian team,” Michaël Uyttersprot, an attendee, told me. “One of the things that sometimes frustrates me is it takes a lot to wake up the lion, but once the lion is awake, it’s roaring.”
Eleven minutes into the second half, the Red Devils scored again, off a disastrous error by Freese. It was such an embarrassing mistake that some revelers seemed hesitant to celebrate. The game was over. It had been since the start, it seemed.
The coup de grâce came with less than two minutes left, when Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku dribbled around the US defense and ripped a shot past Freese into the lower right corner of the goal.
“On Met” played (yet again) so loud it felt like the roof might come off Paris 75 as the bar transformed into a European nightclub. One man clanked two empty beer glasses together over his head so hard that I was sure they were going to smash into pieces. When he set them down, he pounded the bar counter so hard, I felt it 12 seats away.
As fans danced, the party spilled outside, where a crowd tossed Marie Kerckx, a Belgian Club board member, into the air.
Before the game I had asked Kerckx about President Donald Trump’s intervention on behalf of Folarin Balogun, which inspired worldwide backlash.
“What can we say about that?” she said. “That’s not for us to answer.”
The Red Devils answered for her.
“Overturn this,” the team’s official account posted on X after their 4-1 victory. You could almost imagine “On Met La Patate” blasting behind that tweet.
On Thursday, Hallich will host another watch party for the French national team in its quarterfinal match against Morocco. To accommodate what he anticipates will be a larger crowd, Hallich plans to open Paname, his other venue next door to Paris 75.
The Red Devils play Spain on Friday. If both Belgium and France advance, they will meet in the semifinals. I asked Hallich what he’ll do then. He noted the date of the possible match: July 14, Bastille Day.
“It’s going to definitely be a French celebration — hopefully,” he said. “Belgians are also welcome to join the party, you know.”
