Universal CityWalk's NBC Sports Grill & Brew adds four NFL season menu items for the September 9 kickoff

NBC Sports Grill & Brew in Universal CityWalk is adding four limited-time items for the 2026 NFL season, and Universal Orlando is throwing a kickoff party at the venue on Wednesday, September 9. The resort announced both on its Discover Universal blog Monday.

The four items, which Universal credits to NBC Sports Grill & Brew chef Robert Hainer:

• "Crunch" Corn Fritters, an appetizer served with arugula-radish slaw and creole remoulade.
• Mac and Cheeseburger, topped with a mac and cheese croquette, melted cheese, barbecue sauce and pickles on a brioche bun.
• "End Zone" Bowl, cilantro rice, chicken tinga and black bean corn salsa under chipotle aioli, jalapeño queso, Jack cheese and pico de gallo, with a side of fries.
• Berry Fizz, a dirty soda of muddled strawberries, strawberry crisps, vanilla cream, lemon-lime soda and cold foam.

The Mac and Cheeseburger stacks a mac and cheese croquette on the patty. Image credit: Universal Orlando Resort

None of the four appear on the venue's regular published menu, and none were part of the Super Bowl LX promotion the same restaurant ran in February.

The kickoff party

Universal puts the entertainment window at 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on September 9, with a live DJ, referee-themed stilt walkers and the Prize Guys, a CityWalk street act. NBC's pregame coverage starts at 7 p.m. Eastern and the game kicks off at 8:20 p.m., both after the entertainment window closes. Universal says the game will be on the big screens but did not give a time.

The opener is worth a note of its own. The 2026 season starts on a Wednesday rather than the usual Thursday after Labor Day, with the Seahawks hosting the Patriots at Lumen Field in a rematch of last season's Super Bowl. It is the league's first Wednesday opener since 2012, and the Thursday slot behind it belongs to the Rams and 49ers in Melbourne, the NFL's first regular season game in Australia. The Wednesday broadcast is on NBC. The venue carries the NBC Sports name, and the resort is, for now, part of Comcast NBCUniversal. Comcast said in June that it plans to spin NBCUniversal off as a separate public company, with the parks and the NBC network going to the same side of the split.

The "End Zone" Bowl pairs chicken tinga and cilantro rice with a side of fries. Image credit: Universal Orlando Resort

What Universal did not say

No prices. Universal named all four items and listed what is in them, but published no price for any of them. That is worth flagging because the resort did publish a price the last time it promoted a football night at this same venue: its Super Bowl LX post in February carried a flat $125 per person for the Kick Off Action Stations package. That was a ticketed package rather than a la carte items, so it is not a straight comparison, but the resort has published a number for a football promotion at this venue before. This time it did not.

No end date. The resort says the items are available "all season long" and "through the end of football season," which is not a date. The NFL regular season runs into early January and the playoffs into February, and Universal did not say which of those it means.

No word on hours. NFL games typically run a little over three hours, so an 8:20 p.m. Eastern kickoff would put the finish near 11:30 p.m. Third-party listings put the restaurant's Sunday through Thursday close at 11 p.m. Universal did not say whether it is extending hours on September 9, and that is the detail most likely to matter to anyone planning to sit through the fourth quarter. The venue's listing in the Universal Orlando app is the only live source for that.

The "Crunch" Corn Fritters come with arugula-radish slaw and creole remoulade. Image credit: Universal Orlando Resort

The setup is a familiar one: a short menu, a single-night party, and a venue that does not sit behind a park gate. Fall at Universal Studios Florida is already crowded, with Halloween Horror Nights on a separate ticket and Dufftoberfest running in Springfield U.S.A. on regular park admission. Both sit behind a gate. This one does not.

The Berry Fizz is a strawberry dirty soda with vanilla cream and cold foam. Image credit: Universal Orlando Resort

Source: Discover Universal. Kickoff date, matchup and broadcast details per the NFL and NBC Sports.