If you’re reading this, it’s because you signed up to follow along as I work to start a sports bar in SF centered on women’s sports. Thanks for being on the ride.

Theoretically, this is an email reminding you about The Changeup + Barebottle’s watch party on Sunday for the USWNT vs. Iceland friendly. So let’s do that first:

Sunday 10/27 
USWNT vs. Iceland
Barebottle in Bernal Heights (1525 Cortland Ave., SF)
Kickoff at 2:30 but The Changeup will be there by 2, so come early to grab a Barebottle beer or a smash burger from the Shmash’d truck outside

As with all of our watch parties, kids are welcome. Dogs too! If you want my kid to pet your dog, she would be delighted to do so.

I can’t wait to see you, and I especially can’t wait to see you after this week in my life.

It feels strange to talk about non-Changeup life in these newsletters. For most of its (near) existence, The Changeup has been my secret second identity. When I started this newsletter back in April, only a small circle of people knew I was working on opening a women’s sports bar. Even once I started writing here, it’s still felt like a parallel universe; after the regular workday, after kid chauffeuring and dinner and story time, I slip into my Changeup suit and live in that world for as long as I can stay awake.

But, it’s not actually a different world, so I’ll awkwardly and briefly share that early last Saturday morning, our condo building caught on fire. (We don’t yet know how or why.) All people and pets are safe. Our things are smoky but also safe; they’ll come back to us eventually. Our property is a bit of a mess but also mostly intact. (If you’re one of the people reading this who knows me in real life and this is how you’re finding out … sorry?! This week has been a lot.)

This doesn’t have much to do with The Changeup — and it has everything to do with The Changeup. The best part of my weekend last weekend was knowing that on Sunday night, I’d get to take a break from post-fire logistics and watch Game 5 of the WNBA finals at Willkommen with some of you. And I expect the best part of this weekend will be gathering at Barebottle to cheer for Mal Swanson’s 100th cap and cry at Kelley O’Hara’s retirement with other people who get it.

One thing I love about sports is that there’s a rhythm to them, a schedule. Seasons have a certain number of games, games have a certain number of minutes. I may not know what I’m getting when I sit down to watch a game, but I know — give or take an OT — how long I’m getting it for. For the most part, sports go on. (It’s exceptional when they don’t — it’s why that canceled NBA game and then the canceled NCAA tournament in 2020 made the pandemic feel so real for so many of us all of a sudden.) No matter what else might be happening, the sports schedule keeps its own time.

So: It’s a tremendous joy and relief for me to know that come Sunday at 2:30, the USWNT will be playing. And come Sunday at 2:30, I know where I’ll be: at Barebottle, with a smash burger, watching my faves take the pitch, hopefully with you.

I told you it would be a weird one.

To sports?!

-Kimra

If you’re reading this, it’s because you signed up to follow along as I work to start a sports bar in SF centered on women’s sports. Thanks for being on the ride.

ICYMI, I posted a little ditty on Instagram last night about collective joy, the motto and spirit that has powered The Changeup since a weird dream one night this spring. (I could have sworn it was the summer, but when I went searching for the actual evidence, the Notes app rudely informed me it was March. Time is weird.) 

Anyway, seems apt to be sending a quick message about one more chance to ride the highs and lows of these WNBA finals together: tomorrow night, Friday 10/18, at 5 PM, The Changeup is back at Willkommen (2198 Market Street) for Game 4. We've got the Rainbow Room TV with sound on. Come in and make a right; if you see "reserved" signs, that's for us! 

If this series goes to 5, there's a chance we'll do something Sunday too, but not confirmed. Instagram will be the best place for news on that, so please follow if you haven't. 

After Friday, our next for-sure opportunity to watch something great together is just 10 short days away, 2:30 PM on Sunday 10/27 at Barebottle in Bernal (1525 Cortland Ave), for the USWNT vs. Iceland friendly / Kelley O'Hara retirement celebration. Shmash'd will be on site slinging smash burgers if that's your jam (it is very much my jam) and as always, kids and dogs are welcome.

Hope to see you at one of these events soon. 

To sports!

-Kimra

If you’re reading this, it’s because you signed up to follow along as I work to start a sports bar in SF centered on women’s sports. Thanks for being on the ride.

News first: Tomorrow, Thursday 10/10, at 5 PM, The Changeup will be back in the Rainbow Room at Willkommen (2198 Market St) for a watch party for Game 1 of the WNBA finals. Last Friday’s semis party brought out the Liberty fans. Are there Lynx fans among us? Will we be a Rainbow Room divided? Let Willkommen be your dinner and the foosball be your halftime entertainment. Kids and dogs all welcome!

It’s been about a month since The Changeup’s first IRL watch party. It’s been so fun connecting with many of you, talking about everything from the sports we loved as kids to the rise of flag football to our relative positions on the Valkyries season ticket waitlist.

One of the things that almost inevitably comes up is our collective experiences trying to watch women’s sports in bars over the years. It’s … not been great? I mean, I probably don’t need to tell this audience that. That may well be why you’re here reading this. But it’s still fascinating and frustrating to hear. Sometimes I encounter this idea in the world that women’s sports are mainstream now, they’re on at every bar, do we really need our own spaces? The stories I hear at our watch parties contradict that. Yes, there is more; yes, it is better, at least for the sports with the best media rights deals. But the uncertainty of trying to make plans and not really knowing that our game will be on — or worrying that it will be on the worst TV, or the one without sound, or the first one to get flipped off if someone else wants to watch something else — is very present.

(A moment to say, hey, my watch party partner bars have been very cool! And it’s been great to walk into Barebottle and Willkommen recently even when I don’t have an event planned and see the WNBA playoffs on their TVs.)

AND:

There’s still so much more we could be showing — so many sports with vital and growing fan bases. NCAA volleyball is so good right now, and I’ve never stumbled on a bar showing it. There’s a big women’s rugby tournament happening in Vancouver, but it’s not televised; to watch it in a bar, you need an app and special commercial permission, and that’s hard to pull off in a venue that’s not your own. And yes, it’s still hard to get screen space in a place that’s known for showing men’s sports: It’s rare for a place that regularly draws a Niners crowd to counterprogram a Niners game.

I can go to partners armed with data that a particular event has interest from this community. (The fall watch party survey is still open, btw!) And, for the most part, I’ve been able to get the space and screens I ask for. But wow, yes, I still dream of the day when we don’t have to ask.

If we were sitting in our bar this week, of course we’d have our eye on the WNBA finals (Thursday, 5 PM, Willkommen!). Of course we’d be watching Bay FC vs. KC! But we’d be watching rugby too. We’d be watching USF volleyball vs. Oregon State (a conference matchup now!). We’d be watching Cal soccer host top 10 teams UNC and Duke (also conference matchups now!) practically back to back. We could watch fall Oklahoma softball, which I will admit I didn’t even know was a thing — and you know how I found out it was a thing? I found out because another women’s sports bar said they were showing it.

There’s so much we can watch when we don’t have to ask.

To sports!
-Kimra

If you’re reading this, it’s because you signed up to follow along as I work to start a sports bar in SF centered on women’s sports. Thanks for being on the ride.

It’s October, somehow. I’m writing this on the hottest day of the year in San Francisco. The WNBA is moving into the real heart of the postseason, the “oh wow, the champs really might not make it back to the finals” part of the postseason. And today I’ve got for you the following things that start with the letter P:

• Pop-up parties (including a new partner)

• Planning survey (please take it!)

• Pupdates (these are actually regular old starts-with-a-u updates but I’ll throw in a bonus dog to make it fit)

Pop-up parties

First one first: This very Friday, Oct. 4, The Changeup is popping up at Willkommen on Market Street for the WNBA playoffs. We’ll be posting up in the Rainbow Room for both games: Lynx vs. Sun at 4:30 PM and then Liberty vs. Aces at 6:30 PM. I love Willkommen’s beers, sausages, and pretzels (oh look, another thing that starts with P) and I’m excited to be partnering with them for the first time. Come when you can. We won’t tell your boss. As always, this is all-ages-friendly, so bring the family or your family-like friends, or come alone and let us find you a cheering buddy (or friendly rival, depending on your mood). This is a big one and I hope we can show Willkommen the joy and power of a women’s sports crowd. (Details: Friday, Oct. 4, 4:30-8:30ish, the Rainbow Room at Willkommen, 2198 Market Street, San Francisco)

And, a little further out: Save the date for Sunday, Oct. 27, back at Barebottle in Bernal Heights for the US Women’s National Team friendly vs. Iceland, aka Kelley O’Hara day. No, I’m not OK. Come be not-OK with me. I’ll bring the tissues. Bevvies via Barebottle, smash burgers available via the Smash’d truck. This one is family-friendly and dog-friendly so the whole pack is welcome. (Details: Sunday, Oct. 27, 2:30-4:30ish, Barebottle Tap Room in Bernal Heights, 1525 Cortland Ave, San Francisco)

Postseason comes with a lot of “if necessary”s and “time TBD”s so while I’ll always strive to post event announcements here first, it’s also a good time to keep an eye on Instagram for any late-breaking changes.

Planning survey

That’s not all. I’m currently in convos with partner bars about events later in the fall. NWSL postseason? The Stanford vs. Cal oh-we’re-in-the-ACC-now basketball game? Volleyball? It’s all possible. But to pick events that people actually can and want to watch together, I need your help. This four-question survey should take just a couple of minutes to complete and covers (1) what you want to watch (2) when you can watch and (3) where you’d like to watch this fall (with a bonus fourth spot to share anything else you want me to know). It’s a little thing that helps a ton, and if you have a moment to share your thoughts, trust me: I’m listening.

Updates and pupdates

While the location search marches on, the exciting news of last week is that I fell in love with one space enough to put in a letter of intent (aka, an offer to lease it). I have no idea right now if I’ll get it; I do know I’m not the only offer, because this is the Bay Area and in my 20 years here, I’ve never once been the only offer on property of any kind. But if everything breaks right, it could be really really good. I’m probably jinxing it just by writing this, and the next update is likely to be welp I shouldn’t have said anything because I’m back on the hunt bigtime. But for today, we live in hope.

Pupdate: Here’s Speedy, The Changeup’s favorite dog. He’s a little too skittish to make an appearance at a Barebottle pop-up so far, but maybe someday? He put the hat on like this himself, I swear.

Woke up like this

To recap

1. See you Friday at Willkommen, from 4:30 onward, in the Rainbow Room with the foosball table, to find out (among other things) whether the Aces will make it to Sunday

2. Save the date for a soccer Sunday, Oct. 27, at Barebottle in Bernal

3. Please take the pop-up planning survey

4. Cross your fingers

To sports!
-Kimra

If you’re reading this, it’s because you signed up to follow along as I work to start a sports bar in SF centered on women’s sports. Thanks for being on the ride.

Anyone else spend this week agonizing about all the different possible configurations of WNBA playoff schedules and times? …Just me? Cool, cool, cool. I just really wanted it all to shake out in a way that let us watch some basketball together this weekend. And when the Atlanta Dream slid into that 8th position yesterday and made all the other matchups click into place, we were left with a good one out here on Pacific time:

Join me on Sunday, Sept 22, at 7 PM at Barebottle in Bernal Heights (1525 Cortland Ave in San Francisco) for a nightcap on the first day of WNBA playoff action. We’ll chase away the Sunday Scaries by watching the Seattle Storm take on the back-to-back and defending champion Las Vegas Aces. Izzy’s Cheesesteaks will be on site till at least 7:30, the drink options will be plentiful, and we can play pinball at halftime. Good plan? Good plan.

Dogs are welcome, kids are welcome (mine should be there, probably playing pinball), outside food is welcome (but the cheesesteaks are also pretty bomb). Tell your friends, come hang out, say hi, get stickers, cheer, dream big about how this could be the Valkyries next year, and head on into the first week of fall powered by the sheer collective joy of watching women’s sports together. Hope to see you there!

-Kimra

If you’re reading this, it’s because you signed up to follow along as I work to start a sports bar in SF centered on women’s sports. Thanks for being on the ride.

If you’ve been getting these newsletters for a while, you may notice things look a little different around here.

For one thing, we’ve got a name. If you’ve been with me from the “SF Women’s Sports Bar” days, then allow me to formally introduce you to The Changeup — a sports bar with a different pitch. (We’re also on Instagram - please give that account a follow if you haven’t already!)

For another, we’ve got a logo, designed by my favorite food artist Alyson Thomas, truly a dream collab.

And: we’ve got the first of what I hope will be many chances to actually watch some sports together. Newsletter hears it first: Save the date for September 7 at 7 PM at Barebottle Brewing in Bernal Heights (1525 Cortland Ave in San Francisco). We’ll be watching Bay FC take on Racing Louisville in (what I hope will still be…) a key match in the race for the final NWSL playoff spot. Women’s sports, big screens, sound on, kids welcome. (Mine will be there!) Please come on over; I’d love to cheer with you.

Now, a moment for the state of the bar. I spent the summer diving deep into what The Changeup needs and wants to be (short version: a bar and restaurant for women’s sports fans of all ages that oozes joy and color, and that has a menu with a lot of dips and dippers; I feel strongly about the dip component here). Then I started building approximately eleventy dozen spreadsheets — OK, probably actually eight spreadsheets — to reflect that vision into an actual working restaurant model under the incomparable guidance of Courtney Blake at Pilot Light. The Changeup also got a cool shout from The 19th along with a bunch of our favorite sports bar friends, whose milestones have been an absolute joy to celebrate this summer. No space to announce yet, though there are some really strong possibilities — but if you see a great, light-filled, could-be-all-ages space with a leasing sign in the window, smash that reply button, OK?

I can’t wait to tell you more IRL. September 7, 7 PM, Barebottle on Cortland. There will be stickers! Well, there might be stickers. (That’s between me and USPS, frankly.) But probably there will be stickers. And there will definitely be good beer, good vibes, and the sheer collective joy of watching women’s sports together. I hope to see you there!

To Sports!

-Kimra

If you’re reading this, it’s because you signed up to follow along as I work to start a sports bar in SF centered on women’s sports. This is one in a series of occasional dispatches about life in the future bar. It’s an experiment — but it’s all kind of a big experiment. Thanks for being on the ride.

If you just want a quick update on the state of the actual bar, keep scrolling.

If we were sitting in our bar today we’d be mainlining NCAA softball directly into our eyeballs for hours on end, screamingcryingthrowingup (well, hopefully not throwing up) as the stakes get higher through the regional round.

If we were sitting in our bar today, we’d be talking about the Valkyries name announcement, and the serious Marvel-meets-Yellowjackets vibes of that promo video, and the merits of violet as a gear color (I’m very pro) while we settle into the WNBA’s most hyped opening week ever.

If we were sitting in our bar today, we’d be watching Bay FC vs. the San Diego Wave, rooting for scoring, rooting for chaos, rooting for our newest team in their first season to find their footing.

If we were sitting in our bar today, we’d be just one day away from the first gymnastics competition with the past THREE Olympic all-around gold medalists competing simultaneously — what a time to be alive.

If we were sitting in our bar today, we’d need a LOT of TVs to even attempt to watch everything we want to see. “What will you do when women’s sports aren’t on?” Well, lucky lucky us, because that’s becoming less of a problem with every passing day.

One of my favorite things to think about these days is the TV schedule for our bar — how many leagues with legit TV deals we have now, how many games we could actually show. It’s changed so dramatically from when my coworker Emily and I first started kicking this idea around in 2021, when for a lot of things it was still YouTube or nothing or ESPN3 at best. And weekends like this really bring it home, when some sports are cresting at high volume (you know I love high volume) toward their season’s end and others are just getting started. Mark your calendars for mid-May 2025; It’s gonna feel pretty cool when this all goes down next year at San Francisco’s women’s sports bar of the future.

In actual bar news

It’s a weird time, to be honest. Lots is happening; nothing is happening. I saw a space I loved that turned my whole idea of what this bar could be on its head, and now I can’t get it out of my head. But it means some different math, some rethinking the business plan. It’s exciting and scary and cool and I want it to be The One, but it might not be. (But what if it is? is what the little voice in my head whispers …) I realize this is annoyingly vague, but it’s a vague time. I didn’t appreciate how many of these early pre-launch days would be spent sitting in uncertainty.

One concrete step: I’ve started working with Alyson Thomas on logo and branding. (Yes, this means there IS a name.) I’m supremely lucky that the designer behind so much of my favorite food art is also one of my best friends, and getting to work on a project with her is a dream.

And, a request: The first person I’ll be looking to bring on board is an incredible restaurant GM, someone who can lead the kitchen with spirit and care and help me absorb the millions of things I don’t know about running a hospitality business. If this is you, if this is a friend of yours — please reach out. I’m working on a job description, but obviously it’s early days, so I’d love to just start by talking.

And a few shouts

To Watch Me! in Long Beach, whose post-game parties and fundraisers have been nothing short of star-studded. (Jemele Hill, are you KIDDING ME?!)

To Althea’s NYC, who kicked off WNBA season with a bubble-filled watch party that looked like an absolute blast

To The 99ers in Denver, who are rounding the halfway mark of their Kickstarter goal as I write this (and who have been literally building a bar with their bare hands)

To ATX Women’s Sports Pub and Babe’s in Chicago, getting massive press mentions (ATX | Babe’s) and making big things happen on Central Time

As they say: It’s not a moment, it’s a movement. What a joy and delight to feel that every day.

Thanks for reading, and join me next time for another dispatch. In the meantime — feel free to forward this to the friend you can’t wait to bring with you to the San Francisco women’s sports bar of the future.

If you’re reading this, it’s because you signed up to follow along as I work to start a sports bar in SF centered on women’s sports. This is one in a series of occasional dispatches about life in the future bar. It’s an experiment — but it’s all kind of a big experiment. Thanks for being on the ride.

If you just want a quick update on the state of the actual bar, scroll to the end.

If we were sitting in our bar today, we’d be getting psyched for Bay FC’s first weeknight match, another first in this season of firsts for our first NWSL team.

Confession: Until Bay FC joined the NWSL this year, I’d been a pretty inconsistent follower of women’s soccer. In gymnastics fandom, there’s a concept of the “four-year fan” — someone who shows up just in time to watch the Olympics, immediately develops a lot of loud opinions about the lineups or the scoring or whatever, and then forgets to care again until 2028. I wasn’t quite that with soccer, but I wasn’t … not that, either. I’d watch the USWNT in the World Cup or the Olympics or an international friendly, and I knew the major players, and I would tell myself I’d follow the sport into the regular season this time. I’d even pick a team (usually the Thorns — sorry, Thorns) and try to keep up. And inevitably, I’d fall off.

I’d still have said I was a fan of women’s soccer. But it’s a whole different thing now with a local team to follow. Proximity matters, but maybe even more than that, infrastructure matters. Before, I wanted to follow soccer; now, soccer follows me around, too. Matches are on local TV, the local paper’s reporters are covering the team, I see car magnets and sweatshirts just walking around town. I have friends with season tickets. I have tickets for June. It’s in the air in a different way.

It helps that the actual sport is good — that Bay FC matches have been chaotic and compelling, that they’ve come down to the wire more than once, that already I have that “welp, anything can happen” feeling watching them. But that’s not all. Earlier this week, as I was driving the carpool home from my daughter’s dance class, my kid’s friend suddenly informed me that she’s going to a women’s soccer game and it’s going to be on her birthday and her whole soccer team will get to go on the field and maybe everyone will sing happy birthday to her. And I was like, yep, there it is — that’s the thing about local sports. It’s the athletic competition itself, and then it’s all the stuff around it too, the atmosphere and the stadium snacks and the kids getting to be on the field. That’s how the magic happens. That’s how the growth happens. That’s how going to a women’s soccer match becomes a normal thing you do even if you’ve never been a “real fan” before. That’s how you end up getting your friends to come out and watch for a while on a regular old Wednesday night at the San Francisco women’s sports bar of the future.

In actual bar news

It is a wild time to be in the women’s sports bar world, a sentence that could barely have been written two years ago. Last week, The Sports Bra — Jenny Nguyen’s Portland bar that was the first to show that women’s sports spaces are both an incredible community-builder AND an incredible business — announced plans to expand, with an investment from Alexis Ohanian (or as we call him in this house, Mister Serena Williams). The coolest thing for me to see, as that news spread beyond the sports world and into Fast Company and the Associated Press, was just how big the demand truly is for places like this. The comments on so many Instagram posts about the expansion prove it: Come to my town. Come to Austin, Miami, Orlando, the Bay. Come here; we’re hungry for a bar made for watching our sports together. Come here; we’re ready.

If you’re reading this and wondering “so is this going to be a Sports Bra franchise?” — there aren’t a ton of public details yet about what franchising would mean. What I care about is building something that makes sense here, a place we want and love and believe in and want to spend time hanging out in on that regular old Wednesday. (I’d love to know what that means to you, btw, so smash that reply button and let me know what you see.)

Things in this market are changing faster than I could have imagined even a couple of months ago — and that means it’s a noisy place to be a lot of the time. A super fun noisy party of a place! But still noisy. For now I’m moving forward, bite by tiny bite, and trying to trust that the right things will cut through the noise in time.

So, on that note: I’m touring two spaces this week — my two favorites so far, based on their real estate fliers and online glamour shots. Cross your fingers, cross your toes?

Thanks for reading, thanks for being on the ride. Join me next time for another dispatch. In the meantime — feel free to forward this to the friend you see yourself sitting with at the San Francisco women’s sports bar of the future.

If you’re reading this, it’s because you signed up somewhere along the way to follow along as I work to start a sports bar in SF centered on women’s sports. This is the first of some occasional dispatches about life in the future bar. It’s an experiment — but it’s all kind of a big experiment. Thanks for being on the ride.

If you just want a quick update on the state of the actual bar, scroll to the end.

If we were sitting in our bar today, I’d be over the moon because it’s one of my favorite sports days of the year: The NCAA gymnastics championships semifinals.

When I’ve told people how much I love this day, they’re usually like, wait: You love this prelim round more than the actual championship? I sure do. When it comes to sports, I’m all about volume. (My other favorite sports days are the March Madness round of 64.) I love upsets, I love consequences, I love tension, and I love lots of teams playing to win all at the same time.

So today, it’s that day for NCAA gymnastics. Two meets, eight teams, four advance to Saturday’s final. (PLUS a smattering of all-arounders and regional event winners competing solo, without their teams, which is always both sweet and heartbreaking, especially when it’s the last day of some senior/super-senior/6th year’s career. Cue the Instagram retirement post tears.)

This year, in the San Francisco women’s sports bar of the future, our local rooting interests would be focused on the afternoon semi. In that one we have BOTH Bay Area gymnastics teams, Cal and Stanford. Cal sat at #2 or #3 nearly all season and lived up to expectations at regionals. Stanford pulled the biggest upset of regional weekend to advance and then got a bunch of new sassy tree gear to celebrate. These bright lights of the dying Pac12 will take on Arkansas, which is obviously not on the west coast but still sometimes gets called UCLA East because that’s their coaching staff’s origin story, and LSU, the other #2/#3 floater this season, who have been so close so many times and never won the natty. I’m a Cal gal this year, so this is the semi where I expect to be stressed out of my skull.

Then tonight, we roll into the Traditional Powers semi. Only seven schools have EVER won a national title in gymnastics; four of them are here. There’s Utah, who’s been making Nationals since before NCAA gymnastics existed. (It’s a whole thing.) Alabama, with six titles of its own, making it back after a narrow miss last year. Florida, which maybe could have / should have won last year, remaking its lineups with a boatload of freshman and being right up there again. And Oklahoma, which is … Oklahoma, the team that’s won six championships since 2014, the team that hasn’t been below third in more than a decade. Two dynasties will advance out of this one and … well, two won’t.

So yeah, it’s a big day in the San Francisco women’s sports bar of the future. Saturday’s final will be great too (and on ABC, we love to see it) but today’s the one where some dreams live and some dreams die. Wish we were watching it together. Here’s to 2025.

In actual bar news

If you’re reading this today you might have heard me announce this project during the women’s final four in Alameda. Almost immediately after that, I got on a plane to London for my daughter’s spring break trip, which led to great moments/core memories in future sports bar history like redoing a 24-month financial projection on the Eurostar.

Anyway, now we’re back and the hunt for a space is really on. My brain is an alphabet soup of zoning regulations and occupancy codes and lease types. I’m squinting over real estate flyers, mentally placing the TVs, googling regulations about outdoor amplified sound, and stressing about neighborhoods. Where are you, future bar that is more square than narrow rectangle, in a transit-accessible neighborhood, with good foot traffic, with all the right zoning and permitting, oh and maybe with a patio too? You exist, right? (Right?) If you’re reading this, and you’re like “oh yes, I know her, she’s in my neighborhood with a For Lease sign up” — shoot me a note, would you?

Thanks for reading, thanks for being on the ride. Join me next time for another dispatch. In the meantime — feel free to forward this to the friend you see yourself sitting with at the San Francisco women’s sports bar of the future.