They hope to open by June 1 and are trying to raise $60,000 in the meantime, noting on their crowdfunding page that not meeting their goal could delay the bar’s opening. They’ve also been hosting pop-up events since June, selling T-shirts and other merchandise promoting the bar.
“Shockingly, banks don’t want to give loans to first-time bar owners — I say that tongue in cheek — especially women queer bar owners,” Brady said. “It has been a barrier to get a business loan, and I know that we’re not alone in that. I know that a lot of our peers opening in other cities have come up against the same exact situation, so that’s frustrating.”
Annie Weaver and Miranda Spencer, who opened The 99ers Sports Bar in Denver in December, are the bar’s only two employees. To pay off their loans as soon as possible, Spencer said, they both work day jobs, Weaver in insurance underwriting and Spencer in sales engineering, and then one or both of them work until the bar closes at 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends. Weaver said they struggled to find a space to lease because neither of them own businesses or homes that could be used as collateral. Their motto throughout the process has become “everything’s figure-out-able.”
“Five days before we signed our lease, I went to Miranda and I was like, ‘I’m done, I can’t do this anymore. We’ve been told no so many times,’” Weaver said. “And then five days later, we signed our lease. And now, looking back, I would have been so mad at myself that I backed out. This is the most incredible experience, and I can’t imagine it not being a part of my life.”
Huyck, who will open SET the Bar in Omaha on Friday, retired a year and a half ago after having worked for 21 years at PayPal and invested $250,000 of her own money into starting the business. She raised an additional $850,000 through investors, she said, and she has shared her investment model structure with other women’s sports bar owners. She always planned to use investors, she said, and opted to use her own money because of the additional hurdles a bank loan would have presented. She’ll be opening the bar debt-free.
‘Where everyone knows your name’
Many of the bar owners not only wanted to avoid the macho attitudes they’ve encountered at traditional sports bars, but they also wanted to create more inclusive experiences for patrons by, for example, offering mocktails, local beers, craft cocktails and wine. Some of them said they intentionally created spaces with more light, as traditional sports bars can be dark, and Huyck said SET the Bar also has plants and bright colors.
Spencer said that whenever people walk in the door, she and Annie — and then, as a result, the other customers — will start clapping and sometimes “hollering.” Spencer said she enjoys reading the bar’s Google reviews, and a recent one described it as “the bar where everyone knows your name.”
All of the bar owners said they want to ensure that everyone feels welcome, particularly the LGBTQ community, which most of the owners are a part of.
“We are a married couple, and people can connect the dots and see that this is lesbian-owned, and we’re proud of that, but we don’t lead with that,” Diener said, adding that the bar is open to everyone, including families with kids. “We lead with this — celebrating women’s sports — and that’s what separates us from other queer bars out there.”
Weaver said that she doesn’t think it’s an accident that many of the owners of women’s sports bars are part of the LGBTQ community.
“We didn’t have spaces where we felt safe or like we could be ourselves growing up,” Weaver said. “I don’t think that’s random. I think it makes sense to me why it is the way it is, but we still want to be inclusive to everybody.”
The moments that many of the bar owners said they look forward to are when their bars are standing-room-only during important games. In January, just a month after The 99ers Sports Bar opened, the Professional Women’s Hockey League played a game in Denver, with more than 14,000 fans in the arena, setting a record for the highest attendance at a professional women’s hockey game in the United States. Weaver said people in the crowd held signs that said “After party at the 99ers.” Customers filled the bar, and then a line formed outside despite the cold weather.
“We need more of these,” Weaver said of the bars. “We need them all over the United States. They need to exist everywhere. Everybody deserves to have a space like this.”
