Patrons pack Minnesota’s first women’s sports bar for ‘milestone’ opening weekend

Patrons pack Minnesota’s first women’s sports bar for ‘milestone’ opening weekend

Patrons pack Minnesota’s first women’s sports bar for ‘milestone’ opening weekend

Jillian Hiscock arrived at her newly opened women’s sports restaurant and bar on Sunday at 9:45 a.m. to find a line of people waiting for the doors to open at 11 a.m.

She named the watering hole located on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhood ‘A Bar of Their Own.’ It’s the first sports bar and restaurant in Minnesota dedicated to showing women’s sports and one of a handful in the country.

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Sunday was a big day in women’s sports between the crowd of budding PWHL fans and others who came to catch Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark break the all time NCAA scoring record. The bar was packed all weekend though, and the lines and waitlists persisted since the doors first opened on Friday afternoon, Hiscock said.

Hiscock was tired and her voice was waning, but more than anything, she was feeling “really, really excited” as she thanked customers and her staff.

“People have been so gracious with how busy we’ve been,” Hiscock said.

“I think this is exactly what we thought would happen in terms of like, women’s sports fans are excited and they want to watch sports and they want to watch sports in community, and they just needed a place to do it. And so we made that space, and the people are showing up just like we thought they would.”

Inside A Bar of Their Own, there were no frowns around as French fries made their way into hungry hands with the shaking sounds of a cocktail in progress behind them.

Annie Dawson, who reported arriving a half hour before opening to a “long line,” only laughed it off, saying she was anxiously awaiting this weekend.

“I think it’s huge,” Dawson said. “I think women’s sports are really underrated even though, especially in Minnesota, women’s sports tend to do well, and they’re just not appreciated in the same way as men’s sports are.”

From her table, Dawson’s eyes were glued to a PWHL game. At the bar, Molly Raymond and longtime friend and former rugby teammate Erin Hartlaub were anxious to catch Caitlin Clark make history.

However, all of them said that the bond across the bar was so much deeper than any one game.

“It’s a milestone in women’s equity. It’s a milestone in women’s athletics,” Raymond reacted.

“I am so excited to be here for so many reasons,” said another patron, Tracie Anderson.

“But most of all for my two nieces,” she added. “They play varsity basketball for Roseville — Maddy and Lucy — and they have grown as athletes so much, and I’m so proud of Minnesota to have a bar like this that is showing women’s sports.”

Raymond also noted her daughter as a huge driver for her desire to see women’s sports continue to fit more in the mainstream, a nod to a generation of girls with a growing chance to see more athletes like them on the big screen.

“And that’s what this is,” Hartlaub said with excitement. “It’s a community of women that want to watch it together.”

Raymond, jumping off of her friend’s statement, added, “And women, and men, and non-binary, right? Like, people who want to generally celebrate women’s sports because women are superheroes, and they’re not celebrated in the way that they should be.”

About 750 people came through the doors on Friday, Hiscock said. On Saturday, there were closer to 1,000 customers and by the time they close down on Sunday, Hiscock said she’s expects Day 3 will set another early record.