Women’s Sports Bar Owners On How To Get The Most Out of San Francisco

Opening soon, the new hotspot on Market Street adds to the rich tradition of women's bars in the City by the Bay, and is the first dedicated to women's sports.

"Opening a women's space in the Castro is important," says Sara Yergovich, one of the co-owners. "This is the first place in San Francisco where you can reliably watch women's sports, and there is a large women's sports community."

Yergovich and business partner Danielle Thoe, thirtysomethings who arrived in San Francisco about the same time a decade ago, share a passion for sports and their community. While neither has experience in the hospitality industry—Yergovich works in marketing, and Thoe in affordable housing—they have a dedicated group of friends and advisors to help shepherd the project to completion, some of whom have worked with Streicher herself.

“We're cognizant and appreciative of the work that Rikki and all of the staff and patrons did building the communities within those bars. We — and the queer women's community, especially — wouldn't be here without that,” Thoe says.

The bar's expected opening in May coincides with the arrival of San Francisco's Golden State Valkyries, a new WNBA franchise that will share the Chase Center with hometown champs the Golden State Warriors — and fill the screens at Rikki's. The women's team plays their first game at Chase on May 6.

The bar and basketball debuts are a three-pointer for women travelers looking for a sports-themed visit to the world's queerest city. Along with Rikki's co-owner, Danielle Thoe, Outsports has thoughts about making the trip a slam dunk.

The Chase Center and nearby Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, are located on San Francisco's scenic waterfront in the Mission Bay neighborhood, within walking distance of some of the city's best accommodations.

The four-star boutique Hotel VIA is right across the street from Oracle, where you can hear the crack of the bat from the hotel’s sparkling topside bar, The Rooftop. Scan Willie Mayes Plaza below for a nine-foot-tall statue of the Say Hey Kid and fans rubbing his bronze Adidas for luck. Catch a game during your stay; it’s worth a trip just for the bay views and garlic fries.

For travelers on a budget, the historic Utah Inn, a Victorian-era “painted lady” three blocks from Oracle in the SoMA district, provides inexpensive and colorful rooms with shared baths in the "European style."

Across the Third Street bridge next to China Basin Park, LUMA Hotel features rooftop dining with a view to McCovey Cove, where kayakers wait for home runs out of Oracle’s right field. 

A few blocks south, basketball fans and concert-goers regularly fill the plaza outside Chase Center at the corner of Third Street and Warriors Way. 

Restaurants are abundant in Mission Bay, home to Uber and the sprawling UCSF Medical Center campus. You can see bleary-eyed techies and hospital residents come to life with coffee and hand-held savory breakfast pies at Peasant Pies. Watch urban agriculture org Farmscape at work on your lunch in the STEM Kitchen + Garden’s farm-to-table rooftop garden. Chefs reimagine an Asian mainstay with California flavor at the popular Dumpling Time at the Chase Center.

San Francisco is one of the world's most walkable cities, and every neighborhood is accessible by public transit when your feet finally give out—so ditch the car.

Start the day by hitting the hotel gym or joining one of the city's many women's running clubs, such as the Trail Sisters or Tamalpa Runners, to get your blood pumping.  

A good run starts at Oracle Park. Head south and west along the promenade overlooking McCovey Cove and the bay, then over the Third Street bridge toward the Chase Center, which overlooks Bayfront Park, one of several newly reclaimed bay stretches transformed into urban oases. 

You’ll find another heading south to the Dogpatch neighborhood at Crane Cove, which features a beautiful bayside beach with a vast lawn and picnic area. Trade your running shoes for aqua socks and rent a paddle board at Dogpatch Paddle, or put your feet up at The Ramp, a waterfront institution with maybe the best calamari in town (deep-fried lemon slices are the secret) to go with a Bloody Mary guaranteed to pucker.

Thoe suggests a morning walk north along the Embarcadero to the iconic Ferry Building Marketplace, a cavernous and bustling food hall offering local artisanal delights, farmers markets and breathtaking bay views from outdoor dining areas.

Argentinian-style empanadas at El Porteño make a great morning snack. Still, they'll have to compete with Sweetwater oysters from Hog Island Oyster Co. (pulled from Tomales Bay across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County) or a cheeseburger from Gott's Roadside (a city outpost of the famed Napa Valley burger spot).

"Muni’s buses and trains will take you anywhere in the City," says Thoe, a fan of the classic streetcars that run from the Ferry Building up Market Street to Rikki's and the Castro District. 

Castro watering holes, shops, and restaurants bustle in the historic district marked by the world’s most enormous rainbow flag at Harvey Milk Plaza. Celebrate San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ history and culture with a stop at the GLBT Historical Museum in the heart of the gayborhood.

From the Castro, make your way west to Golden Gate Park, San Francisco's storied urban oasis that reaches three–and-a-half miles from the middle of the city to the Pacific and Ocean Beach. 

Caffeinate in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, home to the Summer of Love in the 1960s, on the park's eastern edge at Flywheel Coffee before breaking out your frisbee for a round of disc-golf on 18 holes nestled into the woods on the park's north side near 25th Avenue.

Thoe recommends a "tranquil walk" through the AIDS Memorial Grove to honor those lost to the epidemic. Set among giant ferns and redwoods, it's the country’s only National AIDS Memorial.

If you haven't gotten enough grass under your feet, head north to hike the historic Presidio for "great views of the Golden Gate Bridge and a ton of military and community history," Thoe says.

The former U.S. Army outpost was first established by Spain in 1776 and is now home to newly rewilded areas like Crissy Field, tech firms occupying refurbished Army barracks, and fine dining. Thoe is a fan of Dalida for Mediterranean, Colibri Bistro for Mexican, and Piccino Presidio for Italian.

On a sunny afternoon, get lunch at one of the many food trucks parked along the Main Parade Lawn and enjoy a picnic by the Walt Disney Family Museum.

Baker Beach on the Presidio’s west side is a popular gay gathering spot, with spectacular views across the Golden Gate to the Marin Headlands. Go clothing optional on the beach’s eastern end for a memorable selfie with the Golden Gate Bridge as your backdrop. You may see the occasional surfer girl when surf’s up.

Just east of the Presidio, the Marina Green is San Francisco’s front lawn, the site of pick-up soccer games, and a center of the city’s vibrant fitness culture.

Need some reading material while lounging on the green? Thoe advocates Green Apple Books, “a gem” with two locations in the Inner Sunset and Richmond District; City Lights, the North Beach “classic” bookstore and publisher; and Omnivore Books, a Noe Valley bookstore dedicated to cookbooks and books about food. 

When it’s time to imbibe, amble through Golden Gate Park's Panhandle to Hayes Street and Thoe's favorite wine bar, the Scarlet Fox. The lesbian-owned bar and bottle shop highlights women-owned and women-produced wines and features a tiny alimentari stocked with snacks like popcorn, chocolate, beef jerky and tinned fish to go. On nearby Grove Street, you'll find BASA SF, a medicinal and recreational cannabis collective offering "amazing terpenes" at "realistic prices" since 2003. Both are just blocks from Alamo Square, where you can touch grass as the sun sets on San Francisco's colorful Victorian Painted Ladies.

San Francisco boasts a vibrant bar scene catering to women, including four that Thoe calls favorites.

Lesbian-owned Casements Bar near Dolores Park in the Mission is named for the Irish independence fighter, poet, and human rights advocate, Roger Casement, and "brings a little bit of Ireland to the Mission," Thoe says, adding, "The Mission’s history as a center of lesbian life from the 1970s to the 90s, and as an Irish enclave of San Francisco in the late 19th century, collide here." Check out "a great whiskey selection, pub food staples, and a proper pint of Guinness."

Wild Side West is San Francisco's oldest lesbian bar, opened in 1962 by Pat Ramseyer and Nancy White and still lesbian-owned. Located in Bernal Heights, Thoe describes "a neighborhood bar with a pool table, 50+ years of history on the walls, and magical back beer garden for warm nights."

Queer-owned Propagation is Lower Nob Hill's "garden-centric" neighborhood bar, where many plants and "creative and seasonal cocktails" share space with a mixed clientele. Thoe says "there’s always something new to try" at the chic spot just north of the city's Theater District.

Back in the Mission, Mother Bar on 16th Street features DJs, dance nights, trivia, and karaoke for a "Dyke of center" crowd. Thoe notes the bar’s website features a "'missed connections' page to help folks get in touch if they didn’t have the nerve to introduce themselves in-person." 

And whether you score tickets to that Valkyries game at Chase Center or not, enjoy the post-game action at Rikki's, which co-owner Thoe calls "a place to celebrate every game, every tournament, every win, and to find each other."

"Beyond just being a bar or restaurant, Rikki's is a community space," Thoe says. "We're proud to have found a space in the Castro to highlight women's sports, and we want to use it to tell the story of the larger community that came before us."