Waffle House is winning the World Cup

On the eve of its 250th birthday, the United States isn’t exactly at peak popularity, globally speaking. Onepoll this past spring found that despite its past most-admired status, the U.S. is now viewed less favorably than China in much of the world. Cohosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup amid inflation and various travel restrictions isn’t helping.

But road-tripping World Cup tourists have been offering a counterpoint on social media, posting a wave of admiring, and occasionally gobsmacked, content about everyday American brands and chains like Buc-ee’s, Waffle House, Walmart, and Chick-fil-A. Posts often express amazement at the scale and convenience and free soda refills. Not surprisingly, the posts and their pro-American-brand messages have been widely amplified by a bemused U.S. press. “It’s like a theme park and a museum all wrapped into, you know, a big retail store,” a Scottish visitor to a Bass Pro Shops location toldThe New York Times.

A German soccer fan,@FreddyLA7, started a six-week Cup-centric journey across the U.S. and Canada a few days before the tournament began, and has ended up attracting hundreds of thousands of X followers with his enthusiastic posts about routine American culture. “The Holy land,” hepronounced a Taco Bell. “Great food, great prices, and friendly staff,” he reported after trying his first Waffle House, in Georgia, at the appropriate time of 1 a.m. “10/10, we will be coming back.” (True to his word, at a later stop in New Orleans, one of America’s great and distinct food cities, he opted for Waffle House again.)

He’s not the only international visitor excited by such fare. In fact, he’s part of what’s grown into essentiallya global coalition of newly mintedAmerican brand fans.

“This was the best chicken I’ve ever had,” one self-described “British girl in America enjoying the culture”posted from a Chick-Fil-A. “Don’t even get me started on the sauce, what on earth do they put in it to make it taste so good.” A Scottish touristspoke up for Raising Cane’s (“the sauce is delish”), a Japanese visitormarveled at the free chips and salsa at a Mexican place, and a Swedish influencer compared buying Twinkies from a gas station to being “in a movie.”

A few posts also note practical surprises, like high travel costs or locked toiletries in stores, but the dominant mood is excitement and novelty. Lots of World Cup tourists seem to be treating American brands and chains as part of the sightseeing experience, enjoying an “everyday America” experience of huge gas stations and big-box stores—weirdly reframed as de facto tourist attractions—as much as actual matches.

The content seems to hit in part because it flips the usual travel script: Instead of luxury attractions, people are filming ordinary chains as if they are landmarks. (And maybe they are?) That “everyday America as spectacle” idea feels authentic, funny, and easy for both foreigners and Americans to recognize.

Clearly this is good news for these American brands, which are benefiting from an unexpected outpouring of good vibes in a tense and divisive moment. It amounts to free visibility and positive earned media, with tourists sharing affectionate reactions that make American retail and food culture look fun and distinctive.

And maybe it’s also working the other way around: America’s reputation is getting a bit of an assist from brands many of us take for granted. For better or worse, the popularity of American fast food and pop culture has long been a source of “soft power”—global influence inspired by admiration rather than intimidation. That’s waned somewhat in recent years, but these enthusiastic Cup visitors suggest it’s not completely gone. In other words, maybe what’s good for Waffle House is good for America.

That’s not to suggest that tourist enthusiasm for American fast food will reshape global opinion. But it sure doesn’t hurt. “The biggest takeaway for us,” that Scottish fan of the World Cup and Bass Pro Shops reflected on his U.S. journey, “is the kindness and generosity of people.” Sounds like paradise.