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When Allison Clarke first visited The Sports Bra, she was unemployed out of college and just trying to check out the queer bars in her new neighborhood.
Clarke had played basketball in high school and enjoyed watching women’s NCAA hoops, but she wasn’t especially well versed in who was who in the WNBA or in NCAA basketball. But Clarke also needed a job, so she asked the bartenders if The Bra was hiring. The bar had been open for less than two years at that point; The Sports Bra held its opening day in April 2022.
Clarke ended up landing a dishwasher job in February 2024.
“I wasn’t so into sports when I started there, so I thought that might be a disconnect,” says Clarke, now a bartender at the venue. “But actually, even if you’re not a die-hard sports fan, or if you have a different team you’re a die-hard fan for, you still relate to these people because you have a similar experience of being a queer person.”
Although Portland is known as a queer-friendly city, Clarke says she didn’t have a community of sapphic people prior to working at The Bra. She started to pick up names and storylines from customers who frequented the bar—things like who was having a good season and which players were dating each other. As she learned the ins and outs of the WNBA and the NWSL, the community of regulars and co-workers also helped her feel more comfortable in her own identity. Clarke knew she was queer, but being around other lesbians helped her realize she identified as one.
“These are my people,” she remembers thinking. “I think I’m one of them.”
The Sports Bra has drawn national attention for its stated purpose: showcasing women’s sports. But it has also managed to create a communal space that’s especially queer friendly by tapping into an underserved market: Clarke estimates about half of the bar’s patrons are lesbians.
The presence of queer women isn’t limited to the bar’s patrons; a number of the athletes competing on The Bra’s screens are openly queer themselves.
“It’s great to have the representation,” Nat Lemire says. “You feel like your community is out there on the screen. It’s awesome.”
For Lemire and her fiancée, Lauren, The Sports Bra is an obligatory stop every time they visit from Boston. The couple met after Lauren moved to Portland in 2022 and visited the bar early in their relationship (after a little back-and-forth recollection, they decide it was on their prolonged first date).
But women’s sports aren’t a draw only for queer women. “There’s a lot of families that want to show their kids women’s sports or older women athletes that bring their husbands in,” she says.
While Clarke says many of the bar’s recurring customers are queer, anyone can swing by to catch a game or lunch. The Sports Bra posts its weekly TV lineups on its website and social media for patrons interested in a specific game.
The Bra focuses on being family friendly and broadly inclusive—whether that’s toward parents (queer or heterosexual) who want to come in with their children or a couple walking in off the street to grab lunch or for fans who just want somewhere to watch women’s sports on television.
When I stopped in, a handful of queer women had gathered with friends. But a mom and two kids were also browsing the merchandise area at the back of the bar; there were customers who walked in for a burger and fries for Sunday lunch and a gender-diverse assortment of individuals at the bar to cheer on the Seattle Storm in a close loss to the Indiana Fever.
Queer or not, The Sports Bra is a clear contrast with the men- and alcohol-dominated space of your average sports bar. And it has an audience.
“It sucks when there’s a major women’s game going on,” Lemire says, “and then you’re watching mediocre men’s sports in a bar.” (Lemire is echoing the same sentiment that inspired founder Jenny Nguyen to open The Sports Bra in the first place: to create a space that centers women’s sports.)
Jamila Winston, sitting at a table with a clear view of one of the screens showing the Storm match, says she’s tried to come to a couple of watch parties at The Bra over the years. But she and her partner Shayna prefer to come at less crowded times, when she can catch whatever WNBA game is playing on TV and not have to worry about showing up early to secure a seat in the 40-capacity space.
The Sports Bra is riding the hype; it announced in June that it plans to expand the franchise to Boston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas and St. Louis.
“Even in Portland, we need a second location,” Winston says.
Although The Bra provides a platform for women and queer people, Winston says a hurdle remains to make it a more racially diverse space. “Portland is white,” she says, something that’s reflected in the bar’s patronage. “As inclusive as you want to be, there just aren’t enough of us to do it.”
That’s not to discount the ways in which women’s sports are a vehicle for women and queer people finding community, whether that’s on a court or in the stands. The Sports Bra provides a space for women, queer people and fans of women’s sports more broadly to come together and share that sense of camaraderie.
