A menu of beer, burgers and women's sports
Minneapolis bar is the newest spot to shine a spotlight on women’s sports
All Jillian Hiscock wanted was to watch some softball. Instead, she ended up owning a bar.
It was spring 2023 and Hiscock was out for a drink with friends. She asked the bartender if maybe he could change the channel on one of the 20-plus TVs to show the Minnesota softball team’s game in the NCAA tournament. It was on a regular ESPN channel, not something obscure, and it was local – the game was in town, a couple miles away.
The bartender said no.
“I looked around and what was playing were repeats of football games from the fall and a cornhole tournament,” Hiscock said. “So I was pretty annoyed.”
Hiscock was annoyed enough that she opened a bar of her own – or, more accurately, A Bar of Their Own. The south Minneapolis spot that opened in March shows only women’s sports on its 12 TVs and its walls are decked out in swag from women’s sports stars from Minnesota and beyond.
“To get people together and watch sports as a community is such a foreign concept for women’s sports fans,” Hiscock said. “We haven’t had the opportunity to sit around and watch with other people. I love sitting at the bar and the person next to me is cheering for the same thing.”
A Bar of Their Own joins a movement of similar spaces sparked by the opening of The Sports Bra in Portland, the first bar in the U.S. dedicated to showing women’s sports. The Bra, as it’s often called, opened in February 2022 and was followed later that year by Rough & Tumble in Seattle. (I can speak from experience that the latter offers up one of the best brunches I’ve had in years).
In addition, the phonetically challenged media company Togethxer, founded by star athletes including former WNBA star Sue Bird, partnered with bars nationwide that pledged to show women’s games throughout the tournament. Big Grove in Cedar Rapids was on the list.
And in April, The Sports Bra announced it was expanding and franchising with funding through a foundation created by Alexis Ohanian, Reddit founder and husband of tennis superstar Serena Williams.
Hiscock knew about The Sports Bra when she couldn’t persuade the cornhole-loving bartender to switch one TV to softball. His “no” was the spark for Hiscock, a self-employed consultant, to make a career change.
“I knew it didn’t have to be that way,” she said.
Others in the Twin Cities clearly agreed. The bar was slammed on its March 1 opening – timed for the Big Ten women’s basketball tournament in Minneapolis – and throughout the women’s NCAA tournament. It’s had a steady business since.
“Final Four weekend in here was nuts,” Hiscock said. “We just got so many people who were ready for this space to exist.”
Even with the end of basketball, there’s been no shortage of sports for the bar to show. A recent Saturday afternoon offered NCAA softball, roller derby, world championship hockey and tennis. Now, the WNBA season has begun and the bar hosted a press conference where the Minnesota Lynx introduced rookie Alissa Pili. The Olympics should be a big deal, too.
The bar’s programming is a testament to resourcefulness and persistence. Hiscock’s wife, Megan Slater, researches what will be on in the coming weeks and keeps a spreadsheet. A weekly schedule is posted on the bar’s social media.
There’s more out there than people might think, which is a blessing and a curse, Hiscock said. Besides having one of the largest cable packages available, the bar also has various streaming services. Even that doesn’t cover it all; roller derby, for example, shows live on YouTube.
From there, Hiscock has to get commercial privileges to show the events. (If you ever actually read a user agreement before you click a box, you’ll see that detail.)
“There are bars that show things without commercial privileges but we’ve got a pretty good spotlight on us right now,” she said, “so we want to make sure we’re doing everything above board.”
Hiscock decided that the bar would, indeed, show only women’s sports. It wasn’t an easy call. The Sports Bra shows just women’s sports; Rough & Tumble will show men’s sports, too, if there are things on that people want to watch. Hiscock got requests to watch the Twins on Opening Day and ultimately decided to not go down that road.
“There are so many places people can watch men’s sports. We want to be different,” she said. “We want to be the place you can watch something you can’t see anywhere else. I bet there’s no one else showing roller derby right now. I bet there’s not a lot of places showing softball. To be able to put those things on TV is important for us.”
Hiscock wants to build community around women’s sports, whoever that community might be. It’s not a bar just for women, it’s not just a bar for the LGBTQ community, it’s not even necessarily a sports bar if you just want somewhere to grab a beer or burger when you’re in the neighborhood. Customers have been all ages, from older people who want to watch women’s sports to young families with children.
“We love having families here,” Hiscock said. “Now kids are going to grow up and know that women’s sports are on TV all the time.”
She’ll still field phone calls or messages wondering if men are welcome. They are, enthusiastically. (When I was visiting, the bar area included of a bunch of guys there to watch the women’s world hockey championships.) She’s tweaked the description of the place so instead of “women’s sports bar” to “a sports bar that shows only women’s sports.”
“It doesn’t roll off the tongue as well ,” Hiscock said, “but it’s a better description of who we are.”
Despite the bar being crazy busy during its early days, Hiscock took the time walk around and meet people, to learn why they were there and to enjoy the moment. It was good advice that came from Sports Bra owner Jenny Nguyen. Sure, there’s a desire and need to make money with this endeavor, but to look around and see people of all ages and genders watching women’s sports together is a reward of its own.
“There wasn’t a place for that to exist before,” she said. “To be able to be part of making that space is really cool.”
A Bar of Their Own is at 2207 E. Franklin Ave. in Minneapolis. On the web: www.abaroftheirown.com
Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. She’s a past winner of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Mel Greenberg Award for her coverage of women’s basketball. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”
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The world is waking up to viewing the best women athletes playing their various sports. Fantastic!