Jenny Nguyen opens the Sports Bra.Photo:Dorothy Wang
Dorothy Wang
In 2018, Jenny Nguyen and a group of friends went to a sports bar to watch the NCAA Women’s Championship game between Notre Dame and Mississippi State.
Jenny Nguyen of the Sports Bra.Dorothy Wang
“I’d become so accustomed to watching women’s sports as a second-class citizen,” she says. “Out of frustration, I blurted out, ‘The only way we’re ever going to watch a women’s sports game in its full glory is if we had our own place.’ "
The next day, the name ‘The Sports Bra’ popped into her head.
“You take Sports Bar, and all you do is switch those two letters, but it’s those tiny changes that make all the difference,” she says.
When Nguyen, a former executive chef, wrote a business proposal to turn her dream bar into reality, traditional lenders turned her down for a small business loan.
So on Valentine’s Day 2022, she launched a Kickstarter, hoping to raise $49,000. She raised more than $105,000 in days.
“I opened my email, and there were 600 emails in there from people all around the world talking about what this means to them. In that moment, I was like, I think maybe we’re onto something."
On April 1, 2022,The Sports Braofficially opened, and the women’s sports bar was successful from the start.
“The first eight months that we were open, we made just under $1 million in revenue,” Nguyen says. “It’s been awesome.”
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They have a scratch kitchen, and they try to purchase from local, woman-owned businesses. They have 21 taps — and everything on tap is either woman-owned, or made with a woman in the brew house.
Since Nguyen’s business launched, more women’s sports bars have opened around the U.S., including Seattle’sRough & Tumble, Long Beach, California’sWatch Me!, Minneapolis’A Bar of Their OwnandThe 99ers, opening this summer in Denver.
“It’s great when traditional sports bars or other sports bars play both men’s and women’s sports, but I think there’s something really powerful about creating space to just celebrate women’s sports,” she says.
Nguyen hopes to expand her own business, too.
“Girls and women’s athletics have been freaking awesome for decades,” she adds. “It’s just that nobody was watching.”
source: people.com
