This New Outdoor Soccer Cafe in Oakland Is Primed For the World Cup

Pull up to Neighborhood Sports Club (NSC) in Oakland’s Jack London Square, and you might wonder how nothing of its kind has existed before in the Bay Area.

Part outdoor cafe, part soccer field, part jersey retailer outlet and part watch party hotspot, NSC puts soccer, arts, community, fashion and coffee together in a destination where everyone can kick it. And yes, the kicking is literal here.

Opened in late May, the freshly inaugurated soccer-themed venue and athletic lifestyle brand is primed to become a magnet for futbolistas. With the World Cup coming to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara from June 13 to July 1, its timing couldn’t be better. 

NSC was founded by former professional footballers who, upon retiring from pro action across the States and Europe, realized Oakland was lacking a cosmopolitan arts and culture-minded hub for non-Americanized football. Their goal? To foster an interconnected sense of sports exchange, fandom and supportive ideation, both on and off the pitch.

“Oakland deserves nice things,” says Max Ornstil, one of NSC’s trio of co-founders. “This is too beautiful of a community and culture with so much to contribute, and the city deserves to be recreational and creative without having to drive to San Francisco and pay an arm and a leg. We need something accessible in our own backyard,” 

Ornstil grew up in Oakland, and developed his game in the local youth system as a member of East Bay United/Bay Oak before starring at Santa Clara University. Eventually, he ascended to the United Soccer League, where he suited up for the Oakland Roots, among others.

Ornstil is joined by his friends and co-founders, Dylan Autran and Jordan Jesolva — who each split their time between U.S. and Scandinavian leagues after playing at Santa Clara. Together, they form the grassroots, ball-kicking crux of NSC. Their efflorescent energy is palpable, threaded together by a borderless embrace of the sport. 

For all of its diverse, international confluences, Oakland has lacked a space specifically designed for fans of global football teams to rally together. At one point, the country music bar Overland Country Bar & Grill in Jack London doubled as a spot to watch international soccer clashes, with an emphasis on the U.S. Men’s National Team. The now-shuttered Commonwealth Cafe and Public House off Telegraph Avenue was also a watering hole for soccer loyalists. But since their closures in 2017 and 2022, respectively, there has been a dearth of such pubs in The Town.

And no sports bar in Oakland has ever included an actual soccer pitch. 

At NSC, visitors walk through a warehouse-like entrance with small-batch jerseys for sale, a couch, television and check-in counter with signups for soccer matches. The space opens to a small-sided football pitch with tall nets and waist-high barriers to keep balls from flying out. It’s all bordered by a patio with vintage stadium seats, wooden bleachers and a renovated trailer that serves beverages and pastries.

Building a soccer field in Jack London took four years of navigating permits, finances, and doubters. And while the NSC is in a position to become the nexus for all things World Cup in the East Bay, the group is vocal against the toxic politics, unaffordability, and scandals swirling around FIFA (the World Cup’s organizers), along with the U.S. government’s homeland security policies affecting foreign visitors to this year’s tourney. 

Still, it’s rare that Bay Area fans can be such a direct part of the larger global soccer fabric. Every World Cup game at NSC will likely be projected on the side of an adjacent building, while fans can picnic on the soccer field al fresco. NSC is currently finalizing its alcohol permit, but offers espressos, drip coffee, lemonade and local pastries. (NSC plans to add natural wine and regional beers soon).

“We want this to be a clean, fun, family-oriented space. Sports can have a very rah-rah vibe. But this is an outdoor space where you can take your laptop, and also work out and play soccer or stretch,” says Jesolva, who injured herself as a former professional and pivoted into coffee and food as an outlet during her recovery. 

While the official FIFA tournament plays out this summer, NSC will organize their own international games with a multi-week tournament with players both local and from various countries, including Ethiopia, Palestine, Brazil, the Philippines and Afghanistan, each competing in the “Neighborhood World Cup.” Played every evening after the World Cup matches for the day have concluded, the games will be open to public spectators. 

NSC has already worked alongside nonprofits like Oakland Genesis — a soccer-based program in East Oakland that provides mentorship, academic support and soccer equipment to predominantly immigrant and first-generation Oaklanders. For the coming weeks, they’ve enlisted Design FC, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit that offers design and technology skills to elementary students through soccer jersey design workshops, and Offside Outlet, a UK-based football brand. A large mural of jerseys on its outside walls was painted by Town muralist Kalani.

By nature, soccer is a sport of poetry and interchange — long and short passes between various styles of players, urging patience and presence, a non-stop flow of movement and energy that transpires at a controlled tempo. It’s freeing, lacking the hardnosed attacks and stop-and-go rigidity of U.S. football, and expansive, a cosmic sprawl of international connectivity that the parochial U.S. mind still sometimes struggles to comprehend. 

This summer’s World Cup will finally center the sport in mainstream perception. In Oakland, NSC is poised to lead the charge.

Neighborhood Sports Club is located at 100 Second St. in Oakland. More information here.