It took Fall Brewing owner Dave Lively far longer than he’d have liked to get his new tasting room open, but after months of waiting and wading through regulatory red tape, making tenant improvements and reimagining the design and utility of a former corner grocery, the space is finally operational. It quietly opened its doors yesterday so as to keep throngs of metro-area San Diegans from descending on the venue and shell-shocking the bar staff, but with a weekend of soft-opening trials and the first day out of the way, Lively is ready to let the public know Fall’s Golden Rhino Room is ready to serve.
The venue takes its name from a to-scale plastic rhino head that’s been coated in gold leaf and mounted to the wall. “You can tell folks we bagged the last living golden rhino,” says Lively with a smile. A designer by trade, he was responsible for the eclectic interior design of the space, which a friend of his dubbed “mid-century punk rock.” “He said that and I was like, ‘I think you almost got it,’ but to me it’s like I got a hold of my grandparent’s basement club…even though my grandparents didn’t have a basement club.”
As would be expected, gold elements are woven throughout the space. In addition to the venue’s namesake, there are gold bows and crosses engrained in the dark-wood bar top, and a stylish flock-of-gulls sculpture above a brassy bar backsplash. Antique light fixtures in every shade of earthy, circa-sixties orange and green hang from the ceiling, creating a rumpus-room feel. A wall covered floor-to-ceiling in vintage, original concert posters brings in the established aesthetic from Fall’s North Park tasting room along with patterned, stylized cinder blocks forming the foundation of an L-shaped bar giving way to 20 taps, one of which is nitro. Additional seating options include a trio of leather banquettes plus high round tables, and Lively is in the process of obtaining a patio permit to allow for outdoor imbibing.
After one-and-a-half years—seven months of which were spent spinning his wheels while paying rent on the space during a pandemic while awaiting approvals—Lively is excited to unveil his gold-horned baby. The tap list currently includes a special beer brewed for the occasion, a 6.6% alcohol-by-volume West Coast IPA called Golden Rhino that’s hopped with Columbus, Idaho 7 and Mandarina Bavaria, and also available in cans. Lively expects to have other South Park-only beers on tap, some of which will be collaborations with his neighbors at Dark Horse Coffee Roasters once that entity opens its combo coffee and ice-cream shop next door. Dark Horse currently provides raw materials for the brewery’s popular 2AM Bike Ride coffee stout, and it was that company’s owner that initially and enthusiastically advised Lively to take a look at the site of his new tasting room.
When asked why he decided to site Fall’s first-ever satellite venue in South Park, a community so close to the company’s North Park headquarters, Lively says, “North Park people tend to stay in North Park, and South Park people tend to stay in South Park. And I don’t know if you’ve tried it lately, but it takes some time to get from one to the other. North Park and South Park are two different places that are very close yet worlds away from one another. I’ve loved this part of town for a long, long time, and I’m excited for us to get to be a part of it.”
The Golden Rhino Room is open daily from 2 to 10 p.m., however, if given the green light by the powers that be, Lively says Fall will extend its hours to midnight.
Fall Brewing’s Golden Rhino Room is located at 3010 Juniper Street, Suite A, in South Park