San Francisco's first women's sports bar, Rikki's, to open in the Castro on June 11
Rikki's will officially open its doors on June 11, co-founders Danielle Thoe and Sara Yergovich told the Chronicle.
The bar and restaurant, located at 2223 Market Streeet, will operate six days a week from mid-afternoon until 10:00 p.m. on all weeknights except Mondays and midnight on weekends. Rikki's is the latest tenant at the location after five other restaurants have closed there since 2012.
Thoe and Yergovich met playing soccer together for the San Francisco Spikes, an LGBTQ+ soccer club. They bonded over their frustrations in finding bars that would play NWSL and WNBA games. They went from joking about opening a women's sports bar to seriously investigating the possibility. The duo signed a lease in November after announcing they were fundraising to open the bar last August.
'It's kind of a relief, honestly, it feels like this is a moment that we've been waiting for,' Thoe said. 'Seeing the expressions on people's faces when they see the pictures on the walls, and they walk around the space and see all women's sports everywhere, it feels overwhelming.'
The bar's name honors Rikki Streicher, who was one of the co-founders of the Gay Games Federation in 1982 and two queer women's bars in San Francisco, Maud's and Amelia's, which sponsored several recreation sports leagues and teams in San Francisco. She died in 1994 at 72.
Inside, Rikki's is a vibrant tribute to the history of women's sports. Interior designer Wendy Trotter created walls cascaded by colorful outlines of basketball courts, soccer fields and softball diamonds. A framed Bay FC jersey autographed by every member of the 2025 team hangs next to a San Francisco Falcons ultimate frisbee jersey. A lounge area by the bar displays vintage magazine covers and photographs of women's sports icons, while the back wall is dedicated to Streicher, showcasing images of her former rec league teams. There are 15 televisions across the bar.
Originally hoping to open by mid-May, the new bar owners were delayed by what Thoe called 'city hiccups.'
'Demolition was a challenge, because the original construction was really well done, so some of the demolition took a little bit longer than we thought,' Thoe said. 'Then getting inspections scheduled was a challenge, it took a little longer than we had hoped, but it all got done in the end.
In the months leading up to the opening, Thoe and Yergovich hosted Valkyries and Bay FC watch parties at other San Francisco venues, drawing around 150 fans per event, according to Yergovich. She is hopeful that having a dedicated space showing every game will increase their patrons.
Thoe, who works in real estate, and Yergovich, who is in marketing, fundraised over the past year. Through WeFunder, a crowdfunding website, they raised $425,000 in addition to collecting $390,000 in private investments.
Rikki's is the latest addition to a growing number of women's sports bars opening across the country. In 2025, six women's sports bars have already opened in Phoenix, Omaha, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Austin and Houston. At least eight more (Kansas City, Seattle, Atlanta, San Diego, Des Moines, Columbus and two in New York) are expected by year's end. The Sports Bra, the first women's sports bar to open in Portland in 2022, recently announced it would expand with franchises in Boston, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Las Vegas.
Yergovich said the founders of these bars stay connected in a group chat, sharing everything from licensing tips for streaming games to marketing strategies. Many women's sports events are on newer streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Peacock and league-specific services like WNBA League Pass, which pose challenges for public venues. Unlike just purchasing a cable package, the bar owners have to contact the leagues to get permission to publicly air games spread across multiple streaming partners.
For Thoe and Yergovich, that only reinforced their feeling of a need for Rikki's. After months of work to get to an opening day, the hard part begins: keeping a bar and restaurant open.
'Diving into this world has felt like a risk,' Yergovich said. 'Seeing how excited people are just makes me know that everything's for the right reasons, and it's all gonna work out.'
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