The Blind Rhino: Past, Present, and Future

In 2015, three longtime friends and lifers in the hospitality industry decided to open a sports bar in South Norwalk. Over 10 years later, The Blind Rhino, and co-owners Casey Dohme, Matt Bacco, and Jamie Pantanella have seen one location in SoNo grow into another in Black Rock, another in Milford, and two food trucks.

And that’s not all.

They’re present at events all over Connecticut and beyond and they do a lot for charity—including hosting their own golf tournaments to raise funds for local organizations.

Still…not done.

Rhino is perennially listed in Connecticut Magazine for some category or several, from best wings to best beer list to best nachos and has been their winner of best sports bar nine times and counting. 

Let’s also throw in over 40 awards for their famous chicken wings all over the country, including 13 dubs at the National Buffalo Wing Festival.

All the awards, in my opinion, hasn’t gotten them all the fanfare. Staying consistent has.

I’ve personally said to Casey a few times over, is how consistently impressed I am that they know who they are, how they stay in their lane, and aren’t trying to be something that they’re not.

But that lane they operate in isn’t a sports bar where they’re ripping open bags of frozen food and dumping it into a fryer to serve to customers. They make it all or most of it in-house, like the wing sauces and dry rubs, the hand cut fries, and they’re grinding their own burger meat.

And if you go and are a regular, you’ll see familiar faces, some of which have been employed there since day one. Their families are present, too, and some are actively involved in The Blind Rhino in some way.

On the heels of The Blind Rhino opening their latest spot in Downtown Milford, I sat down with Casey over a few…OK…several drinks, to chat about their origin story, everything in between, and what their future is.

Andrew: So, you guys all met at The Ginger Man in Norwalk. Tell me about that and what you all did there.

Casey: Christian (Burns) was part of the first ownership group with Bob Precious, who started them in like Texas, right? So then, one of my best friends growing up, Chris Sharpe, his dad was one of the original partners, so I got brought in with Mike Sharpe. My first job in the industry was at Bobby Q’s in Westport, so the GM over there was the opening GM for Ginger Man. I'm at Ginger Man busing tables, and not soon after, Matt got a job there as a bar back.

I came home from college and went up the ranks, Matt went up the ranks, and then he started going off in a different direction trying to brew beer, try other stuff, do whatever, and I was just like, I think I might do this restaurant thing, try management, whatever. We'd gone through a couple early chefs, and then, not soon after, Jamie came in and had the longest run for a chef at Ginger Man. He brought the beer dinners, elevated the food, but really did what Ginger Man, should have done the whole time, stay true to exactly what beer bar, pub fare should be. And he's just good at that. It’s a fucking sweet spot for him. And we kind of went a little right with the sports bar stuff, but he just does that style well. That was where it all started: busboy, barback, and then a couple years in, Jamie came into the mix and really had the stronghold on the chef side of things for Ginger Man.

Andrew: I kind of remember back in the day, like you and Matt were basically running the floor at Ginger Man.

Casey: Yeah, so Matt bounced around doing brewing things and he’d come back to Ginger Man, then Christian opened Post 154 in Westport and Matt went over there, ran that, while I opened Cask Republic Stamford for Christian. Jamie was off, like semi-retired, but, moonlighting at places like Upper Crust for a little bit, but was just kind of hanging around, and I remember the conversation I had with him at Cask Stamford, like, listen, you want to do anything, keep me posted. He said the word “sports bar,” but, “You know, good, elevated. I could see maybe doing that.” Matt and I had always talked about thinking bigger, basically working for ourselves. At some point, you're just gonna fucking take the tumble if you really have the itch to do it. The stars aligned and for lack of better word, shithole, fucking drug down, sports bar in South Norwalk became available.

Andrew: Prior to it being Blind Rhino for those who don’t know or remember, it was Bradford’s, and before that, The Rattlesnake when it moved from the corner.

Casey: Matt had a bead on the space and asked what I thought. It wasn’t my first thought to jump into the ownership pool, but let’s open a sports bar. If we're gonna do it, let's open a fucking sports bar. We loop in Jamie on the chef side of things, investor side of things, and had it come together fast. The investment comes from Jamie and his wife and their family. Me and Matt, as young guys, is essentially mostly sweat equity, so that is like the deal out the gate. We'll run the giant. You guys put it up, but we got a chef and our investor and that's the team. Me and Matt then start to figure out roles for ourselves so we hire Angel, we open up with a chef, and we're off to the races as the sports bar in Downtown South Norwalk. We put lipstick on the pig that was here and jumped in. It was an opportunity that seemed crazy to pass up, but very quickly. Matt was in, I was in, then you gotta think, are we gonna buy the place? Then it was like, do you scrap together like five or six different people or do you just go to somebody who's ready and waiting and has the chef perspective? It was the perfect time, perfect moment. We all really bought in immediately and it worked out. And that same deal, that same ownership structure, the same three of us, are still going strong 10 years later with expanded roles and more to do, but it's the same fucking thing.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Blind Rhino (@blindrhinobar)

Andrew: Remember that thing I said about you guys staying in your lane in doing it really, really well?

Casey: I do remember you saying that, and I remember it being the ultimate compliment.

Andrew: I've told a million people that. I respect you guys because you’re not trying to do foie gras on top of a burger or stick a lobster tail on there or be anything other than what you are. The wings fucking slap every time, the burgers are excellent, and so are the wraps and everything else.

Casey: That's the ultimate compliment because going back to like opening the place, we're taking over a sports bar, we have TVs up. I was like, we don't have to call it Johnny Touchdowns so that's why we came up with The Blind Rhino, so you could sneak it on Google Maps, so we wouldn't lose you, but we were like, guys, sports bar, sports bar first. We have to stay true to that and stay in that lane. You can have some fun with some other shit, but for the most part, it’s full circle all the way around and we keep going back to these core things that people like us and look for us for. We stayed true to four or five pillars of atmosphere, sports, service, wings, and good pub food.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Blind Rhino (@blindrhinobar)

Andrew: But the cocktails are always good, too, the beer list as well. But I also see a lot of the same faces at your locations. I think that's important.

Casey: That’s something we learned. Getting good people, hire good people, surround yourself with good people. The rest will take care of itself. Our biggest thing is taking care of our people, treating them well, listening to them, and not driving them into the ground, taking care of their PTO, trying to be competitive with pay, giving all our managers two days off. That's unheard of. Stay true that they get 14 real days of PTO. They have a seat at the table when two, three, four times a year, we get together as a company to listen to ideas and learn and open up, be transparent about the PnLs (profit and loss reports), the books and budget. When we hire people, I want you forever, but if I get you for a little short stay, I tell them to milk this place for everything you can, take what you like, take what you don't like, meet with Jen (Pantanella) downstairs, go over finances, meet with Mandy, who's our event coordinator, learn from her, see the calendar. It's good for us and it's good for you. We’re seeing longevity with these people; 10 years, six years, eight years, four years.

Andrew: If people aren't taking advantage of their workplace, what are you doing? You can't just take a paycheck, I mean, people do that, they'll take a paycheck, but if you want to learn something, you should take that opportunity to learn, especially if your employers are eager to show you something.

Casey: I'm like, take it over. You want to film social videos? Go ahead. Put that on a resume. I'll vouch for you.

Andrew: Your videos have gotten really good. The one with Matt coming into work like a kingly owner fucking killed me.

Casey: It's still us. If we start scaling, people start to say the words like chain, corporate, and this and that, but if we can find a way to stay true to what we're doing, because we've cooked wings in the Virgin Islands, in Buffalo, Maine, Jersey, LA, Phoenix, Vegas, at the Super Bowl. Winning, traveling, and winning pretty frequently.  That stuff is cool. And that's what we enjoy doing. People are just like, “these wings are crazy.”

You're having some of the best chefs in the world compliment your wings, so why can't we expand to and get in different markets? Some of the people who used to go out in SoNo and do the late nights with us, now they have families up in Milford, and they're happy to have a Rhino their neighborhood. to bring our families.

There's always those that fear of the things that come with scaling up, but we also embrace it because we're in it every day, trying to make sure we have good bartenders, that the beer's always gonna pour cold, cocktails are always gonna be good, get good service, but we really like stay true to being on top of the food all day, every day. I think that's gonna allow us to have some runway and really keep this thing running around. And we're getting that from people's mouths and it’s the best compliment. When we did Milford and friends and family those first couple weeks, they’re telling us it tastes like Rhino. That's amazing. I love it.

Andrew: So, where do you see this going? Are you looking for more spots? If you had to predict any kind of future…

Casey: I think it'd be crazy to just say that'll never happen, because if someone puts a number in front of anyone, you’re stupid if you don’t think about it. We take every meeting. It's gonna stay us for as long as it can. Until it's, “you guys are out,” or until the fucking complete structure changes.

Let's say we go to Shelton, Stamford, Danbury, or any other places we're looking at, that investment is coming from this company. If it takes us three years for another one, let’s work towards that, and we'll go there when we're ready. We have people in line, and we created a playbook on budget, on paper, on the way to open with a chef, with a team. We know how much time we need, how much capital we need, and we know where we need to be. That stuff is crazy but cool. We can do it ourselves. The same team that met over there and banded together and took a shot on themselves is gonna be the same team doing this thing until someone puts an insane number on paper, and then it's whatever, but if and when. We're not looking for the exit. We’re in this because we love it. I want my kids to enjoy it and they already are. We do the Italian festivals and stuff and my daughter works a booth with her nonna—I think she worked a 10-hour shift last time. No kidding. That stuff is cool.

And but to be able to also feel comfortable to do stuff like that and take the food truck out there and do these private parties and see how much, like, you can touch people's brand. We're gonna do our ninth charity golf tournament in the spring which is crazy to me that that was a fun idea, and then it just continues to build, and work with BJ (Lawless) and his foundation and continue to get back and sponsor little league teams. Now I can sponsor my kid’s team, so that was cool. It’s almost bigger than us now which is crazy.

theblindrhino.com