What is perhaps the world’s first women’s sports bar opens in northeast Portland today, The Sports Bra has captured national attention for playing only women’s sports and focusing on women owned providers in all of their food and drink. Located just one block from SteepleJack Brewing on NE Broadway, the cleverly named Sports Bra will also feature a curated craft beer and cider list made up of mostly women made or women owned beverages. The New School got an early preview ahead of the official opening to see the unique beer selection, food, and culture first hand.

Female athletes get their due at The Sports Bra, with 5 televisions playing only women’s or co-ed sports games being broadcast on regular TV, satellite or cable, and Just Women’s Sports for some additional limited programing.  They will play Portland Thorns games and ATA Football matches. The mission is to provide a space that supports, empowers, and promotes girls and women in sports and in the community. The Bra may cater to women, but it’s an inclusive space for however you identify yourself and is even all-ages friendly up until 10pm.

Young and old fans of female athletes are hungry for a place to watch and celebrate women’s sports says owner Jenny Nguyen. Since announcing the opening, she has been inundated with donations of memorabilia, national news coverage, and social media engagement from Canada, Brazil, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Spain. The launch Kickstarter raised $105,000 over 30 days, which was more than twice its goal.

Despite the international media coverage, the homey pub feels more like a vintage locals watering hole than a tourist attraction. The walls are lined with memorabilia new and old, from vintage trophies to a brand new Raven’s jersey signed and gifted to the bar by the team, and a handmade quilt depicting FIFA Women's World Cup champion, two-time Olympic gold-medalist Brandi Chastain. The Sports Bra hammers home the fact that women (and men) need to see - and be seen - by the world, which encourages and empowers women and helps change preconceived notions and misguided perceptions.

“The statistics about girls and women dropping out of sports are staggering. Girls who play sports have higher self-esteem and a more positive body image. The Bra will be more than just a place to view women’s sports. It gives people a space to be together and celebrate. It can start with the viewing, and then expand to how that could grow into a larger movement,” says owner Jenny Nguyen.

Jenny was formerly a chef for 15+ years, starting out on fryer at a Red Robin before attending culinary school, and then a NW Portland French-Italian inspired fine dining restaurant. In 2004 she began working at Bon Appetit as a salad bar prep cook and worked all the way up the ranks to executive chef for Reed College in SE Portland. Jenny is a rarity in many ways, as a 43 year-old Portland native coming back to her hometown to open a creative and untested concept in the inner city during a difficult time. She grew up a basketball fan, and has grown to appreciate the wider world of sports while noticing there weren’t places that reflected her own community. According to data collected by The Sports Bra, 96% of all sports media coverage on TV is of men’s sports. That means just 4% of all sports on TV is of women.

“We aim to put that 4% on blast. If it’s on, we will show it. That being said, if it’s not on, we CAN’T show it. We’ve worked hard to develop a few partnerships with several sports media brands to bring more coverage than the measly 4% that’s out there, but this is just the beginning, and even with the added media, there’s not nearly enough content for us to show 24/7. We just want to put it out there that there will be times when there are not any games on TV, and when that happens we may choose to turn the TVs off. We think it’s not only powerful to highlight the 4% that is showing, but also to highlight what is NOT showing. The more attention we draw to viewers demanding women’s sports coverage, the more power we have as a community to push for change and equity!”

Jenny is a spirits drinker, she loves the brown whiskeys especially, but has been learning to re-evaluate her own preconceived notions of beer that were established at a younger age. After following Clear Creek distiller Caitlin Bartlemay on instagram, she started realizing there was a whole world of women made spirits and beverages. Caitlin is the current Portland chapter co-lead of the Pink Boots Society, an organization created in Portland that was originally designed specifically for female brewers and has now been expanding to include women in many/most fields of fermentation. Caitlin connected Jenny with other craftsman and small businesses that had women behind the helm, or behind the brewdecks, or integral parts of the team. Meeting those makers and trying their product began to change her perception of what beer could taste like too.

“I have a greater appreciation for it. Especially IPA’s, I think in my mind I was thinking they were one note bitter. But the hazy’s are money, fresh hopped beer too, I am finding all these niches of beer and realizing I thought of them as one way - and I was wrong,” she says.

That experience turned her on to some of Portland’s best breweries that she had never even heard of. The taplist at The Sports Bra is packed with breweries that feature women as head brewers such as Heater-Allen Brewing, Bauman’s Cider, and SteepleJack, and smaller companies ran by women like Threshold Brewing & Blending, and Gateway Brewing.

“Obviously women owned breweries are going to be all about it,” says Jenny. “But I got people like Brody Day (owner of SteepleJack), guys that have these women that are awesome that never get talked about. Like Migration Brewing has Gracie doing the small batches and they were like ‘oh my god, you gotta meet Gracie!’ there is no question that there are tons of extremely talented women brewing beer. But for people who don’t know, they sit here at the bar drinking a beer thinking it was just another guy brewed it. I am hoping with social media and bios that I can really uplift these women who are working their asses off.”

With Jenny’s kitchen background the food was the first thing she thought about when it came to curating the services outside of the sports. “The menu was easy, I love going to a sports bar, the burgers, the nachos and that stuff. That’s the thing with the Sports Bra it is taking what is traditional and just changing it a little bit. I wrote the menu as a place I would want to eat, but my absolute favorite is the ribs.”

Jenny reaches back to her Vietnamese family and mother’s cooking for light inspiration in the otherwise straight-forward but delicious renditions of typical sports bar grub like tots, sliders, and cheesesteak. Standing out from the Americana are items like Vietnamese Wings on a fish sauce cabbage slaw or Baby Back Ribs cooked in a clay pot caramelized with coconut milk and served over the same vinegary Asian slaw.

Assuming things go well (and based on the early buzz this will be a popular destination), Jenny would like to bring The Sports Bra concept to more cities across the world.

 “This is my first time doing anything like this, so it’s a super steep learning curve. It’s like you tip over one domino and you don’t know what’s on the other side. My dream scenario is to franchise this out. In my fantasy world there is one in Toronto, New York, LA, Minneapolis, Chicago.”

The Sports Bra officially opens April 1st (no joke) with 24 taps of craft beer and cider, a sourcing ingredients from women-owned businesses: beef from Cory Carman of Carman Ranch, alcohol from Freeland Spirits and produce from Vibrant Valley Farm. 

2512 NE BROADWAY AVE., PORTLAND, OREGON 97232
Open Wednesday through Sunday, 11am-11pm
thesportsbrapdx.com