It didn’t make sense to Danielle Thoe and Sara Yergovich: Women’s sports are exploding, but why are there no women’s sports bars?

The two friends had met playing soccer with the San Francisco Spikes and were often looking for a place to watch Bay FC after their own games on Saturdays.

“We’d call places days in advance, and they’d say, ‘We don’t have the channel,’ but it was on regular TV,’” Yergovich said. “It was a struggle. We realized there wasn’t anywhere in SF to watch.”

This May, that’s going to change.

Thoe and Yergovich are opening Rikki’s, believed to be the Bay Area’s first women’s sports bar and restaurant, in the city’s Castro district.

Rikki’s is named after Rikki Streicher, a community activist who founded the Gay Games in 1982 and started two queer women’s bars, Maud’s and Amelia’s, before her death in 1994.

“She was known for making community spaces that were really accepting,” Yergovich said. “We wanted to emulate that and bring some attention to her and her community.”

Rikki’s will open in the space formerly occupied by Copas, a Mexican restaurant that closed last April.

“It’s super important for us to be in the Castro,” Yergovich said. “It’s not a lesbian bar but it’s queer-owned and women-focused. That space hasn’t existed in the Castro. It’s a really male-dominated neighborhood. That was important to us.”

Rikki’s, San Francisco’s first women’s sports bar, is set to open in the Castro this May. (Courtesy Sara Yergovich). 

The space fits 162 people and will be filled with TVs tuned in to women’s sports, particularly Bay FC, the women’s soccer team that plays home games at PayPal Park, and the Golden State Valkyries, the WNBA team about to kick off its inaugural season at Chase Center this May. Rikki’s has already teamed up with both teams who have helped get the word out on social media.

They’ve already hosted some women’s sports watch parties at Standard Deviant Brewing, where they noticed something about the guests: There were a lot of families.

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With that in mind, they’re teaming up with JD Voss, the former owner of SOMA’s Jamber Wine Pub, to create a family-friendly menu with options for everyone. (Stay tuned for more information about the type of food they expect to serve.)

San Francisco mixologist Christian “Suzu” Suzuki will build the cocktail menu, though Rikki’s expects to also serve a wide variety of beers and wines.

“It’s been so fun planning it, meeting everyone, different people from different sports organizations, the professional teams and local communities,” Yergovich said. “It felt very validating.

“We really wanted this space to exist. We wanted to make sure it was a cool space and not a corporate thing where someone from outside the community is capitalizing on women’s sports and their fanbase. Part of our brand is we are people in the community for women’s sports, working with other community members to build the space.”

Details: Opening in May at 2223 Market St. in San Francisco; rikkisbarsf.com.

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