Two queer women have signed a lease to open a women's sports bar in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood. The new enterprise is believed to mark the first return of a lesbian-themed bar in the LGBTQ neighborhood in decades.
Sara Yergovich and Danielle Thoe, business partners and friends, will be opening Rikki's — named for the late longtime lesbian activist, bar owner, and Federation of Gay Games co-founder Elizabeth "Rikki" Streicher — at 2223 Market Street, the former location of Copas, which closed in 2024.
It will be a few doors down from the gay-owned sports bar Hi-Tops at 2247 Market Street. Jesse Woodward opened it in December 2012 with partners Matt Kajiwara and Dana Gleim, providing the first space of its kind in the Castro for queer sports aficionados to hang out, watch athletic games on its TVs, and order drinks over a bite to eat.
Yergovich and Thoe, who met through the San Francisco Spikes Soccer Club, on whose board Thoe serves, said they found it difficult trying to watch women's sports at San Francisco sports bars.
"The origin was us trying to watch sports together at bars with friends and having trouble with traditional sports bars not wanting to put women's sports on or not having the right streaming services or channels," Thoe, who is queer and pansexual and lives in the Inner Richmond neighborhood, said in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter. "Women's sports are growing very rapidly, and I want to watch the sports."
To Thoe's point, the Bay Football Club started playing out of San Jose in the National Women's Soccer League last year, and the Golden State Valkyries will start playing in San Francisco in the Women's National Basketball Association this year.
Thoe said the pair will need about six months to get the bar up and running, which they hope will happen by May or June.
Yergovich, who is queer and lesbian and lives in the Castro, said naming the bar for Streicher was a natural fit. Streicher owned the lesbian bars Maud's in the Cole Valley neighborhood from 1966 to 1989, and Amelia's in the Mission district from 1978 to 1991. Maud's and Amelia's founded the first women's teams in the San Francisco Gay Softball League.
A co-founder of the Gay Games, Streicher died of cancer in 1994. The athletic field at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center in the Castro is named after her.
"She was really known for creating exceptional community spaces," Yergovich said of Streicher.
There are only a handful of bars catering to queer women in the city, all in or near the Mission district. The Castro hasn't seen a lesbian-themed bar in decades.
The Cafe San Marcos billed itself as a lesbian club for a time in the 1980s and 1990s. A May 5, 1994, B.A.R. cover story headlined "Is The Cafe trying to get rid of women? Most people say no" relates that the Cafe "has for the last few years been San Francisco's only bar frequented largely by lesbian women" but that "the male-female ratio of the clientele is shifting, with men comprising up to 80 percent figure of the club's patrons on some Saturday nights and its female habitués are not thrilled."
While the club, which by then had been renamed The Cafe, raised money for lesbian causes, there were rumors of a "secret plot to destroy The Cafe's woman-friendly atmosphere" by, for example, "free drink tickets scattered amongst the gay male population, to lure them," the B.A.R. reported — charges the club denied.
Yergovich and Thoe have been raising money on their website and through women's sports home watch parties since the concept was announced in August, and they are still accepting donations. Future watch parties will be announced on their Instagram page, the women said.
According to their crowdfunding webpage, they have raised close to $244,000 toward a goal of $425,000. People can invest any amount starting at $100 or more, with those giving at least $2,500 receiving an invite to the bar's private opening party.
Kate Bove, a writer and executive assistant at the city's LGBTQ film festival Frameline, noted on that site that, "I have lived in SF for about a decade and it's long been a struggle to find a bar willing to switch over to a women's game — even if it's an Olympic gold medal match. We need a space that prioritizes and centers women athletes and viewers (especially as the Valkyries inaugural season nears!)."
Thoe said the pair has felt supported by the office of gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman and the Castro Merchants Association.
"We felt a lot of support from different groups we reached out to," Thoe said. "The merchant's association has been supportive. Folks are just excited there's a more women's-centric space in the Castro."
Terry Asten Bennett, a straight ally who is president of the merchant's association, told the B.A.R. that she's "very excited to see this space reopen so quickly."
"It is great for our local economy to see new demographics," Asten Bennett stated. "I wish them nothing but success and look forward to seeing what they do with the space."
Mandelman said that he welcomes the new business.
"I could not be more excited to welcome Rikki's Bar SF to the Castro," he stated. "A women's sports bar will be a fantastic addition to a neighborhood that has not always felt especially welcoming to women.
"I am glad and grateful that Danielle and Sara have chosen the Castro and District 8 as Rikki's future home," Mandelman added.
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