On a chilly Wednesday night in Logan Square, the streets are quiet but Babe's Sports Bar at 3017 W. Armitage Ave is packed shoulder to shoulder.
"This is very typical for if there's a big game on, or even a medium-sized game," said Nora McConnell-Johnson, founder and owner of Babe's.
While Chicago has its fair share of sports bars, there are few quite like Babe's, which only shows women's professional sports. No exceptions.
On this particular night, the bar is showing the championship game for Unrivaled, a women's three-on-three basketball league.
McConnell-Johnson, a longtime athlete and women's sports fan, said she decided to open Babe's following her own struggles finding somewhere in Chicago to watch women's sports.
"I was really trying to watch the Chicago Sky and couldn't find any bars to watch it," she said. "I would call and say, 'Will you be able to show this?' It was very rare to get a 'yes.' It was not a positive experience, so it was just this moment of wanting a space like this to exist for myself."
So she got to work, and after a year of renovations, opened Babe's in September.
McConnell-Johnson describes the bar as if "your grandma was a basketball star back in her day and had a basement dedicated to that stardom." It's complete with an arcade basketball machine, a photo booth and rows of bleachers to watch the games.
"Really just trying to normalize that women are athletes," McConnell-Johnson said. "Women compete at high levels. Women are intense. And just having that throughout the space, while also making it really beautiful and enjoyable for people to be in."
And when the bar had its grand opening last year and the line lasted the whole seven hours the bar was open, McConnell-Johnson said it was clear that others needed the space just as much as she did.
"I knew that people wanted this. I knew that there was an appetite for a space like this," she said. "I knew it in my gut, but I'd been told by some people, and also just by messaging from culture, that this space was not in demand."
Bargoers themselves even said that Babe's helps fill the clear gaps in the number of sports spaces designed for women in Chicago.
"It's been hard because I like to go watch women's soccer and finding somewhere where I can watch and turn off a football game or a men's basketball game is kind of hard," said Allison.
Another guest named Nadia said she has a hard time finding places to go out where she feels comfortable.
"I just love a space where women's sports can be celebrated and I feel really safe here," she said. "I don't oftentimes feel that way at a bar."
And while the bar's eight TVs only show women's sports, everyone is welcome, no matter how they identify. In fact, a handful of men were at Babe's for its Unrivaled showing.
"If you really love basketball, watching the women's games, they actually run sets, they run plays, they're not just chucking 3's and ducking the ball, and it's just a beautiful game," said Manny. "I want to come out here and support the women. I wish more people would do it."
It's a message McConnell-Johnson said should be universal.
"Everybody appreciates spaces where men are not centered, and nobody actually likes toxic masculinity," she said. "When you take that out of the equation, everybody, cisgender men included, get to have a better time."
McConnell-Johnson said she hopes Babe's gives people a glimpse into what a world that centers women could look like.
"We have been told lies, as people living in this culture, about women, about women's sports, about women's strength," she said. "My hope with this space is that people come in and they see what it looks like when women's sports and women are respected and celebrated the way they deserve and they start to sort of question and trouble for themselves why it's not like that in other spaces, and they help make it feel that way in more spaces, too."