They hope to open by June 1st, and are looking to raise $60,000 in the meantime. The crowdfunding page highlights that you may not be able to achieve your goals. They have also been holding pop-up events since June, selling t-shirts and other products promoting the bar.
“To my surprise, the bank doesn’t want to give a loan to a first-time bar owner. I say that the tongue on the cheek, especially the strange bar owner of a woman,” Brady said. “Getting a business loan was a barrier, we know we are not alone in it, we know that many of our peers who open up in other cities have come across the same situation.
Annie Weaver and Miranda Spencer, who opened the 99ers sports bar in Denver in December, are the only employees at the bar. To pay off the loan as soon as possible, Spencer said they both work during the day, Weaver in insurance underwriting, Spencer in sales engineering, and one or both will work until it closes at 10pm on weekdays and 11pm on weekends. Weaver said he struggled to find space to lease because neither of them owns a business or home that could be used as collateral. Their motto of the whole process is “It’s all about it.”
“Five days before I signed the lease, I went to Miranda. “I’m done, I can’t do this anymore. It’s not been said many times,” Weaver said. “And five days later, we signed the lease. And now, looking back, I was so mad at myself that I retreated. This is the most incredible experience and I can’t imagine it being a part of my life.”
Huyck, who sets up a bar in Omaha on Friday, retired a year and a half ago after working at Paypal and invested $250,000 in money and started the business. She raised an additional $850,000 through investors, and said she shares the structure of the investment model with other female sports bar owners. She has always planned to use investors and has chosen to spend her money for the additional hurdles offered by bank loans. She will open a debt-free bar.
“All people know your name.”
Many bar owners wanted to avoid the macho attitudes they encountered in traditional sports bars, but also wanted to create a more inclusive experience for their patronage by offering, for example, mocktails, local beers, craft cocktails and wine. Some of them intentionally created a brighter space as traditional sports bars could get darker, and Huyck said the bar also has plants and bright colors.
Spencer said whenever people walk through the door, she, Annie and as a result, other customers applaud and sometimes start a “scream.” Spencer said she enjoys reading the bar’s Google reviews, and the recent one described it as “a bar where everyone knows your name.”
All the bar owners said they wanted to make sure everyone was welcome. In particular, the LGBTQ community, where most owners participate.
“We’re a married couple and people can connect the dots and see that this is lesbian-owned, but we’re proud of it, but we’re not leading it,” Dean said. “We’re leading this — we celebrate women’s sports — that separates us from other strange bars.”
Weaver said he doesn’t think it was an accident that many female sports bar owners are part of the LGBTQ community.
“We didn’t feel safe or feel like we could grow ourselves,” Weaver said. “I don’t think it’s random. I think it makes sense why it is, but we still want to be inclusive to everyone.”
The moment many of the bar owners say they’re looking forward to it is when their bar is only in the standing room during a critical game. In January, just a month after the 99ers Sports Bar opened, the Professional Women’s Hockey League played games in Denver, with over 14,000 fans in the arena, setting the record for the highest attendance in the US professional women’s hockey game. Weaver said people in the crowd had signs saying “after a party at the 99ers.” Customers filled the bar and lines formed outside despite the cold weather.
“We need a lot of these,” Weaver said of the bar. “We need them all across the US. They need to be everywhere. Everyone deserves a space like this.”
