# Chargers Open Preseason Thursday in Houston, and the First SoFi Night Is a Week Later *Preseason Week 1 is on the road at NRG Stadium, so the Bolts open on your television, not in Inglewood. The first home night is August 20 against San Francisco. Here is the South Bay map for when the building actually opens.* **Section:** Sports **Tags:** Sports, Season-playbook, Chargers, Sofi-stadium, Inglewood, South-bay, Preseason, Nfl, El-segundo **Reading time:** 3 min The Chargers start the 2026 preseason on Thursday, August 13, at the Houston Texans, kickoff 5:00 PM Pacific from NRG Stadium. It is a road game, which means the first football of the year in Los Angeles is a television event, not a parking-lot event. Anybody planning to drive toward Inglewood this week should stay put. SoFi Stadium gets its first Chargers night on Thursday, August 20, against the [San Francisco 49ers](https://www.49ers.com/). The preseason then closes on Thursday, August 27, with the crosstown game against the [Los Angeles Rams](https://www.therams.com/), same building, both LA teams, 7:00 PM. Full slate and ticketing at [https://www.chargers.com](https://www.chargers.com/). Preseason tickets are the cheapest football of the year and the concourse is half empty, which makes it the best night to bring somebody who has never been inside SoFi. The rest of this is where to go before and after, built around the South Bay rather than downtown. ## Eat and drink before the gate Chargers Sundays pull from the South Bay as much as from Inglewood, and the two routes rarely cross. If you are coming up the 405, treat El Segundo and Playa del Rey as the staging area instead of fighting Century Boulevard. Stuff I Eat on Market Street in Inglewood is vegan soul food a short hop from the stadium, and the counter is one deep, so order ahead. Woody's Bar-B-Que in South LA is hickory smoke and window service with no seating, which is a feature when you are eating in the car. Playa Provisions in Playa del Rey puts four concepts under one roof with the ocean two blocks away, and it is the move if you want the beach detour before the 405 sets up. For the road games, and there are plenty, the rooms that actually turn the sound on are Tom's Watch Bar downtown, The Standing Room in Redondo Beach, which is a counter in the back of a liquor store, and Hudson House in Redondo, a dark room with a long bar and an early-kick crowd that knows each other. ## At a Glance - **Preseason Wk 1:** Thu Aug 13, 5:00 PM PT, at [Houston Texans](https://www.houstontexans.com/), NRG Stadium - **Preseason Wk 2:** Thu Aug 20, 7:00 PM PT, vs [San Francisco 49ers](https://www.49ers.com/), SoFi Stadium - **Preseason Wk 3:** Thu Aug 27, 7:00 PM PT, vs [Los Angeles Rams](https://www.therams.com/), SoFi Stadium - **First LA home game:** Thursday, August 20 - **Home venue:** SoFi Stadium, Inglewood - **Tickets and full slate:** [https://www.chargers.com](https://www.chargers.com/) ## Make a day of the block Market Street in Inglewood is six walkable blocks of records, resale and murals, and it closes early, so go before the gates rather than after. Downtown El Segundo is a Main Street that still functions like one, with a hardware store, a bookshop and three coffee bars inside a few blocks. Westfield Culver City is the indoor, air-conditioned option, and Malik Books there is worth the stop on its own. If you have the morning, the Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo lets you sit in the cars, and the Manhattan Beach Pier is genuinely empty at 9 AM on a game day. Walk it, then head inland ahead of traffic. The night before, the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach has run a Sunday lineup for decades. One planning note for the whole month: SoFi shares the Hollywood Park campus with the Kia Forum and Intuit Dome, and all three run their own calendars. Check what else is on the same off-ramp before you buy parking. ## Curator's Note Two things worth knowing. The opener is in Houston, so nobody needs to drive anywhere on Thursday. And August 27 is the crosstown game, Chargers hosting the Rams in the same building both teams call home, which is the only night all preseason where the whole city has a reason to be in one place. That is the ticket to plan around, not the opener. --- Curated by VIBES News Desk ยท Published 2026-08-11 Source: https://www.curationsla.com/vibes/2026-08-11-chargers-open-preseason-thursday-in-houston-and-the Cite as: CurationsLA, "Chargers Open Preseason Thursday in Houston, and the First SoFi Night Is a Week Later", https://www.curationsla.com/vibes/2026-08-11-chargers-open-preseason-thursday-in-houston-and-the (published 2026-08-11). License: CC-BY-SA-4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) Structured manifest: https://www.curationsla.com/vibes/2026-08-11-chargers-open-preseason-thursday-in-houston-and-the/manifest.json