San Francisco’s first women’s gym will open in the Castro

Danielle Thoe and Sara Yergovich met and played soccer together for the San Francisco Spikes, an LGBTQ+ soccer team. They pledged their collective fight to find a place to watch the WNBA, Bay FC, or any other women’s sports game.

“You’d call places ahead of time, and get answers like, ‘What’s that?'” says Yergovich.

That will soon change. Rikki’s, a new gym dedicated to women’s sports, at 2223 Market St. e Castro, Thoe and Yergovich announced today. It will open sometime this spring. Copas, a Mexican restaurant, closed in one location in April, according to SF Eater.

Rikki’s is named after Rikki Streicher, a well-known community activist, owner and operator of three of the city’s oldest closed lesbian bars: Maud’s, Amelia’s, and Olive Oil’s Bar and Grill. Streicher also helped create the Gay Games, a global event where athletes compete in an Olympic-like event that celebrates gender diversity in sports.

To commemorate their opening, Thoe and Yergovich plan to buy new signs for Rikki Streicher Field, a small ballpark located in Eureka Valley. They have already helped install a sprinkler system and plan to continue maintaining the garden in honor of Streicher’s memory.

Maud’s and Amelia’s, two of Streicher’s most famous lesbian bars, were gathering places for needy women in San Francisco from the late 60s to the 90s. Originally called “Education,” Maud’s was open 365 days a year so customers could come in any time of year and have family to celebrate the holidays with. Thoe says: “Building that kind of place, a place for people to gather together is very important to us.

Now, the two owners say, it’s the right time to start a bar that focuses on women’s sports. In the past few years, broadcast platforms, even cable TV, have made watching women’s sports more accessible. A new fan base, especially around the WNBA, has exploded.

Momentum continues to build as the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries’ move to San Francisco’s Chase Center in 2025. In several packed introductory parties hosted by Thoe and Yergovich to watch women’s games at multiple venues across the city, fans they were born. handing out Valkyries T-shirts, and the excitement is palpable. The fans, huddled in groups, grab a beer and stare intently at the screen, cheering and jumping from their seats to score a goal.

“I’ve never been in a room with two hundred people watching one women’s sports event, and they’re all cheering, groaning, sighing at the same time,” Thoe said. after another WNBA Finals viewing party aired 36 hours before kickoff. . “That’s unique, the feeling that everyone here is a part of this. That’s the feeling we want people to get.”

At the venue, held at Standard Deviant Brewing, attendees spilled onto the sidewalk. Some had gone across the bay, one was celebrating a birthday.

Thoe, who works in real estate, and Yergovich, who does marketing, are raising money for Rikki through WeFunder, a crowdfunding site that helps places like Rikki’s pay donors over the years. earned income. They are almost two-thirds of the way to their fundraising goal of $425,000.

The co-owners have cultivated a devoted following of sports fans and found a community in their co-workers, many of whom have donated to Rikki’s and often appear at their viewing parties. However, Yergovich said he felt deeply the lack of representation for athletes who looked like him, unless it was the Olympics. At the vigils Thoe and Yergovich throw, they create a sense of belonging long before Rikki’s opens. Yergovich says: “There is an amazing response to this is a place where there are people like me. “We can hang out, and there are a lot of them.”

You can find out about their preview parties here.