During a press conference Wednesday prior to Duke’s Sweet 16 appearance, head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is coaching in his last-ever NCAA Tournament, spoke highly of the Bay Area’s love of, and appreciation for, basketball, which has been ingrained in this part of the country for decades.
As genuine as his statement may have been, it’s ironic given the fact that it wasn’t until very recently that fans of his program, arguably the most ubiquitous in the country for college basketball, did not have a place to call home in the Bay Area for watching Duke basketball. That home exists now, but it took some willpower from two alumni.
Claire Kaptinski, 26, and Jake Stokes, 28, are two friends who met one another at Duke and each moved to the Bay Area one year apart from one another.
Both found themselves facing a similar problem: There wasn’t a consistent and enjoyable way to watch Duke men’s basketball. Stokes recalls the first attempt at a go-to spot for watch parties was the now-closed Union Street restaurant and sports bar The Brick Yard, but that location provided far from an optimal viewing experience. Fans often had to watch games while seated in a dining area and had to direct their eyes towards a whitewashed projector television with almost no game audio in the establishment.
Kaptinski remembers bouncing around and exploring many different bars whenever Duke’s alumni association would host an event, but nothing really stuck during that period. As she and Stokes searched for a solution to this common problem, Kaptinski suggested a bar she was introduced to as the postgame haunt for intramural kickball games: Northstar Cafe in North Beach.
.jpg "Northstar Cafe on the corner of Green and Powell streets in North Beach.")
From her standpoint, the bar, which says it has been around since 1882, not only had the right physical environment to hold a sports watch party with plentiful televisions, sports memorabilia and reasonable standing space, it also had the credentials to properly host fans of Duke basketball. This is a bar that serves as a destination for Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles fans, two of the most loyal and passionate fan bases (sometimes to a fault) across all of American sports, so having a bunch of "Crazies" watching from well outside of Cameron Indoor Stadium seemed like a natural fit.
The goal wasn’t to only make this a spot they and their friends would frequent; Kaptinski and Stokes wanted Blue Devils fans from all walks of life showing up. This would mean going a bit more by-the-book and contacting alumni relations for help on promotion as they prepared for their first watch party event, which was a hyped showdown against the University of North Carolina, Duke’s bitter in-state rival, on Feb. 20, 2019.
The event completely packed the bar. A glance at the archived Facebook event shows 78 people RSVP’d online; Kaptinski says “close to double” showed up to watch the game. Sure, this was one of the easier Duke squads to cheer for, featuring Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett and Cam Reddish, but people showed up in droves for more than just bandwagoning purposes.
“It was the most Duke people I have had around or we’ve all been around in one place since college, which was a really special feeling,” Kaptinski said. “Especially just the way that Northstar is laid out with all different televisions, there’s a really good sense of community, and when you’re inside watching the game, it’s a very contagious energy similar to that unifying in the student section of Cameron.”
.jpg "Northstar Cafe bar manager Billy Forte hangs the Duke Blue Devils flag in preparation of the upcoming NCAA tournament game, Wednesday, March 23, 2022.")
It wasn’t a total celebration. The Blue Devils would go on to lose that game, 88-72, but the excitement of being around so many fellow Duke fans to celebrate, and even commiserate, had such an impact on Bay Area alumni and fans that people kept coming back.
Even Northstar staff and ownership got swept up in the hype. In addition to being welcoming and accommodating to the large crowd that had arrived, and playing the game’s audio throughout the establishment, the bar put up a Duke flag to hang alongside the others, and they even made specialty themed drinks such as a “Blue Devil shot” (vodka, 7UP and blue Curaçao).
The reputation of the bar grew in such a way that planned Facebook events weren’t needed to get alumni over there. It even made its way to each new wave of grads who moved out to San Francisco. The number of people showing up would ebb and flow naturally along with the excitement attached to each particular game. Fans who might have had bars with Duke ties closer to them, like in Mountain View or East Bay, would end up heading over to the city on weekends to catch a game at Northstar. Sure, sometimes it would feel cramped during the more marquee matchups, but without a crowd that size, there wouldn’t be moments like in 2020 when Duke beat North Carolina, 98-96, in an overtime thriller.
It was that game specifically that made Stokes realize that Northstar’s reputation as The Duke Bar of San Francisco was here to stay.
“The whole bar was standing-room only,” he said. “The whole bar was going crazy and wild. Just that atmosphere compared to sitting at a table at a restaurant I think really sold it for a lot of people.”
In a way, it was that enthusiasm that laid the groundwork for helping Northstar make it through the toughest parts of the pandemic. When the bar had to close, it set up a fund for employees where people could donate money in exchange for “drink futures” when the bar opened up again. The support was overwhelming to the point where there was even a request to stop the flood of donations “for the sake of logistics.”
.jpg "The Duke Blue Devils flag hangs in the Northstar Cafe in North Beach.")
The energy and enthusiasm has continued throughout this season in particular as this is coach Krzyzewski’s last one before retirement, which he announced in June. Stokes noted that there’s been an air of added pressure, as well as added hype, to each game in the viewing experience as a result. Kaptinski described the campaign up to this point as “a big emotional event we’re all experiencing.”
Duke’s alumni website currently does not list Northstar as an official place to watch Thursday’s game against Texas Tech, but that’s no big deal to either of the two. The organization has already done its part in sending swag over to the bar and giving it the air of legitimacy to truly cement its name as San Francisco’s Duke Bar. Everything else is just icing on the cake. Neither Stokes nor Kaptinski see Northstar losing that status anytime soon, if ever.
Will there be fans heading to the official event closer to Chase Center? Absolutely. But to the dedicated group that has been heading to North Beach to watch their storied program for a couple years, their plans are already set. No matter when Coach K’s career ends over the next couple rounds of the NCAA Tournament, chances are, most of San Francisco’s Blue Devil faithful will witness it at Northstar.