The Mexico–South Korea watch party drew 30,000-plus to downtown San Jose Thursday night, forcing bars directly facing the plaza into round-the-clock restocking operations just to keep the taps open.

The Old Wagon Saloon, which sits directly across from San Pedro Square's main watch party plaza, has been ordering kegs twice a day since the World Cup's Mexico matches began — once after closing to cover the next morning, again in the morning to cover the evening game.

Bartender Brandon LoDolce told NBC Bay Area the saloon is burning through close to two dozen kegs a day and has doubled its usual tequila case orders. "On the first day of Mexico, we learned quickly that we need almost four to five times of what we usually get just for a day," he said. The bar's supplier is now running deliveries on a schedule that tracks match kickoffs rather than the typical weekly restocking cadence.

Down the block at O'Flaherty's Irish Pub, partner David Mulvehill put the squeeze in context: "June and July can be lean months downtown because no Sharks, college is out, people are on vacations." The FIFA tournament — which runs through July 19 — lands squarely in that gap, and operators around San Pedro are moving to fill it.

Thursday's Mexico–South Korea group stage match brought the tournament's biggest San Jose crowd yet. City officials had projected more than 25,000 fans in and around San Pedro Square, with a kickoff that came after 1 a.m.; workers at multiple bars said they stayed through the night restocking ahead of Friday's games.

The math on those numbers is blunt: a 30,000-person crowd in a tight downtown corridor with no offseason to absorb the slack.