When The Sports Bra (2512 N.E. Broadway) opens its doors to the public Friday, the bar’s founder, Jenny Nguyen, thinks it may be the only bar for women’s sports in the world.

“Hopefully not for long,” Nguyen said Thursday at a press preview of the Northeast Portland spot.

Women’s sports are already always on TV at The Sports Bra. Thursday, it was gymnastics and basketball. On Friday, it will be two Final Four basketball games. On Saturday, there will be a soccer match featuring the Portland Thorns and a livestream of an Oregon Ravens football game.

The symmetry with the NCAA basketball games is not lost on Nguyen, who came up with the name for her dream bar years ago after watching a championship game at a sports bar on a small TV with no sound while a group of friends screamed and celebrated.

Starting Friday, there will be at least one place in Portland where no one will have to ask someone to please turn on the women’s game.

Jenny Nguyen, owner of The Sports Bra, a bar and restaurant dedicated to women’s sports, poses for a photo on Monday, Feb. 22, 2022.Vickie Connor/The Oregonian

“It really has taken a village,” Nguyen said, calling her staff “the best staff on the face of the planet.”

That village includes her cousin who painted a large mural on one wall and the girls of Girls Build who built the green picnic tables outside.

Nguyen is braced for whatever comes Friday. The response to The Sports Bra has been enthusiastic, and she knows that could mean big crowds. The menu is set (including a drink called the Title X and another called the Triple Axel in honor of Tonya Harding) and there will be cheerleaders.

Doors open at 11 a.m.

503-221-8052 lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker

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