Marketing

Why Magic City Hoagies launched booze-free sports venue

The fast-casual concept teamed up with basketball star LeeLee Bell to create a family-friendly venue dedicated to women's sports.

LeeLee Bell, She Plays Here ambassador at Magic City Hoagies & Sweets. Photos by Gabriel Mejia/Vivvid Imagery.

October 14, 2026

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While traditional sports bars lock their doors to minors when the sun goes down, one North Dakota fast-casual concept is tearing down the velvet rope for the next generation of female athletes.

Magic City Hoagies & Sweets has launched "She Plays Here," an initiative transforming its downtown Minot restaurant into the nation's first alcohol-free, family-friendly home dedicated exclusively to women's sports.

Although elite women's sports crossed the $1 billion global revenue mark in 2024, according to Deloitte, the venues airing those games remain overwhelmingly centered around 21-and-over bar culture — leaving young fans on the outside looking in.

"Our future female athletes shouldn't be watching from the sidelines of a bar they can't walk into," Christine Staley, founder and CEO of Magic City Hoagies & Sweet, said in an email interview with FastCasual. "They deserve a place of their own — their community, a great meal and the game on every screen."

Christine Staley, founder and CEO of Magic City Hoagies & Sweets (left/right), with LeeLee Bell, She Plays Here ambassador. Photo by Gabriel Mejia/Vivvid Imagery.

Staley pointed out that conventional watch spots inherently bar the very kids who dream of playing on those big screens.

"Why alcohol-free? That's the whole point. Everyone can watch the game at a bar — but a bar is exactly where a young girl chasing her own sports dream can't go," Staley said. "Most sports bars are 21-and-up, or flip to 21-and-up after eight or nine at night. So we built the first place that isn't one: alcohol-free, family-friendly, every screen on the game, all ages welcome."

To match the booze-free environment, Staley plans to roll out an exclusive zero-proof beverage line next year, tapping into the skyrocketing demand for mocktails and dirty sodas.

"The vision is a signature alcohol-free line of our own — mocktails, dirty sodas, something we'd coin and build on-brand, the way we did with our City Sauce and the Meat-Wrapped build, not a copy of what's behind a bar," Staley said.

Sole sisters

Anchoring the launch is a two-year partnership with LeeLee (Alliyah) Bell, who steps in as Magic City's inaugural female athlete ambassador. Bell is a three-time North Dakota Gatorade Player of the Year, the 2026 North Dakota Miss Basketball and a University of Oklahoma signee.

For Bell, the partnership offers a platform to inspire the young athletes walking through the door.

"I really wanted to start this campaign because I know when I was little, I always found that looking up to someone you love makes you work hard to achieve what they have done," Bell said. "If I can achieve all the goals I want to, there's definitely a girl and a boy out there who don't know it yet, but they want the same. So if I can be that person they look up to, I want to be it."

The She Plays Here initiative includes:

Dedicated women's sports programming on every in-restaurant screen.
Winter watch parties and ambassador appearances.
Limited-edition She Plays Here merchandise.
A scholarship program launching in spring 2027 for a graduating North Dakota senior female athlete.

Founded in 2014, Magic City Hoagies & Sweets is a fast-casual sandwich and ice cream concept, hosting the in-store "Magic District Hangout Podcast" and highlighting local community talent through its monthly menu spotlights.

Marketing