When Janie and Stephanie Ellingwood went to an area brewery one night time to observe a U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Staff soccer recreation with some buddies, they didn’t suppose it might be an enormous deal to ask the workers to activate the sound.
The bartenders had all the time been pleasant to the married couple, who frequented the bar at the least a couple of occasions per week. They usually have been the one patrons within the small room, located away from the primary viewing space, the place the quantity was on full blast. In order that they have been shocked when the workers curtly shot down their request with none clarification.
Opened in early June to coincide with Satisfaction Month, Untamed Spirits is the primary ladies’s sports activities bar in Los Angeles.
(Alyson Aliano / For The Instances)
The Ellingwoods continued watching the nail-biting recreation with subtitles, however because the match turned increasingly thrilling, clients started spilling over to their facet of the bar. Earlier than lengthy, the small room was packed.
“We have been all cheering,” says Janie. “All of us gave one another high-fives.”
Janie and Stephanie Ellingwood took over one other sports activities bar in Silver Lake and turned it into Untamed Spirits, the primary ladies’s sports activities bar in L.A.
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Nonetheless, the workers refused to show up the quantity.
The expertise left the Ellingwoods, who’re diehard followers of the L.A. Sparks and season-ticket holders for Angel Metropolis Soccer Membership, questioning why there weren’t any bars in Los Angeles the place they might comfortably watch ladies’s sports activities with out feeling ostracized. In order that they determined to create their very own.
After months of trying to find a location, the wife-and-wife duo took over one other sports activities bar in Silver Lake — previously generally known as Trophy Spouse — and turned it into Untamed Spirits, the primary ladies’s sports activities bar in L.A.
Opened in early June to coincide with Satisfaction Month, Untamed Spirits joins a brief checklist of bars within the U.S. devoted to ladies’s sports activities, together with Portland’s Sports activities Bra, which is increasing to 4 new cities together with Las Vegas and Boston; Tough & Tumble in Seattle; Minnesota’s A Bar of Their Personal; and Rikki’s in San Francisco. Lengthy Seashore’s Watch Me! Sports activities Bar, which opened its doorways final July, was the primary in California.
Stephanie, 37, who performed skilled golf for a couple of years, felt that L.A. wanted one thing like this. “One thing that’s a little bit bit classier, that isn’t sticky once you put your arms on the bar,” she says.
“For as soon as, I wish to watch a recreation on the bar with sound on as a substitute of some random spot within the nook,” Janie, 34, provides.
The bar is glossy and trendy — a neon pink signal reads “Welcome to the Untamed Period,” and kooky black and white illustrations cowl a couple of of the partitions.
(Alyson Aliano / For The Instances)
On a latest Tuesday night time, Janie was behind the counter pouring drinks, together with their signature Angel Metropolis pink punch, for patrons sitting on the bar, which was adorned with rainbow flags and an Angel Metropolis Soccer Membership flag. In the meantime, Stephanie was floating across the area, checking on clients. The couple, who met whereas enjoying volleyball collectively at La Quinta Excessive Faculty, additionally run a made-to-order croissant bakery based mostly in Orange County and transform and handle residential properties all through Southern California.
The bar is glossy and trendy — a neon pink signal reads “Welcome to the Untamed Period,” and kooky black and white illustrations cowl a couple of of the partitions. Menstrual merchandise are displayed on the toilet counter. The spacious patio is stuffed with vegetation and an indication that claims “Watch Girls’s Sports activities Right here.” (There’s a TV in practically each nook, so there’s no dangerous seat.) Though Untamed Spirits focuses on ladies’s sports activities of all types — even the extra area of interest ones like kayaking, Janie says — the bar additionally reveals males’s sports activities.
“Some folks may name it a development, but it surely’s not a development,” Janie Ellingwood says. “I imagine it’s a motion.”
(Alyson Aliano / For The Instances)
Sitting at a desk with a date and two buddies, Marina Sobreviñas, 31, says she’s discovered that queer bars like Hello Tops in Los Feliz usually tend to play ladies’s sports activities, however she felt that “it’s about time” there’s a spot devoted to them. She remembers her expertise attempting to observe the FIFA Girls’s World Cup at a bar.
Untamed Spirits affords bar meals with a world twist with dishes like kimchi fried rice.
(Alyson Aliano / For The Instances)
Untamed Spirits sells nonalcoholic and alcoholic drinks together with margaritas and a signature Angel Metropolis pink punch.
(Alyson Aliano / For The Instances)
“There was like, one World Cup TV out of the ten TVs they’d going, and it was type of fascinating,” she says. “Like, ‘Am I’m the one one carrying a jersey at this time? OK, no drawback.’”
Sobreviñas says that ladies’s sports activities are simply as thrilling as males’s sports activities.
Lisa Marie Ornelas, 30, agrees. “Girls [athletes], in a manner, have a little bit bit extra to show,” she says.
Untamed Spirits arrives in L.A. at a time when curiosity in ladies’s sports activities is increasing at a “meteoric tempo” throughout the globe, in keeping with Nielsen. The 2024 NCAA ladies’s basketball event averaged practically 19 million viewers (with a peak of 24 million viewers for the ultimate recreation between Iowa and South Carolina), an 89% bump from the earlier yr. The WNBA draft viewers jumped 511%, and general curiosity within the league grew 29% between 2023 and 2024. The Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League noticed a 17% enhance in curiosity between 2023 and 2024. With the heightened curiosity, advert spending additionally elevated: In 2024, TV advertisers spent $244 million on ladies’s sports activities, a year-over-year enhance of 139%, in keeping with TV advertising and marketing agency EDO.
Untamed Spirits has indoor seating and a spacious patio the place patrons can take pleasure in sports activities of all types.
(Alyson Aliano / For The Instances)
“Girls usually have been enjoying nice sports activities for a very long time,” says Stephanie. “I simply suppose the precise individuals who have the flexibility to place them within the highlight are lastly noticing.”
Extra ladies’s sports activities bars are anticipated to open all through the nation. Jax Diener, who opened Watch Me! Sports activities Bar in Lengthy Seashore along with her spouse a few yr in the past, remembers when ladies’s sports activities weren’t aired on TV in any respect. She went to the primary WNBA recreation on the Discussion board in 1997.
Untamed Spirits not too long ago turned an official bar accomplice of the Angel Metropolis Soccer Membership.
(Alyson Aliano / For The Instances)
“We used to come back residence after these video games that have been so thrilling and activate the sports activities that night time to see the replays, and so they weren’t even talked about,” says Diener. “It was as if the league didn’t even exist.”
Diener says she was excited when she heard about one other ladies’s sports activities bar opening in Southern California. “To me, it was actually vital for them to know that we’re on this collectively,” she says, including that she has a textual content thread with different ladies’s sports activities bar house owners the place they share recommendation. “This isn’t a contest. That is ladies supporting ladies.”
Untamed Spirits not too long ago turned an official bar accomplice of the Angel Metropolis Soccer Membership, which has a majority female-led possession group that features Natalie Portman, Abby Wambach and America Ferrera. The Ellingwoods will host their first watch celebration on Sept. 7 when the ACFC takes on Gotham FC.
Janie and Stephanie, who’ve been on the bar day-after-day because it opened, say they’re excited to finally distill their very own spirits, host extra occasions and watch events within the area and foster neighborhood amongst ladies’s sports activities lovers.
“Some folks may name it a development, but it surely’s not a development,” Janie says. “I imagine it’s a motion.”
Janie, left, and Stephanie Ellingwood say they’re excited to finally distill their very own spirits, host extra occasions and watch events within the area and foster neighborhood amongst ladies’s sports activities lovers.
(Alyson Aliano / For The Instances)
