Blinders Sports Lounge Is Giving A Vegas-Style Experience in Charlotte

Can one supersized screen reinvent the sports bar experience?

Courtesy, Blinders Sports Lounge

Early this year, I began to hear buzz about a sports lounge with a “big-ass screen” coming to South End. Its owners promised a Vegas-style experience with a 60-by-15-foot screen that weighs about 10,000 pounds—the largest on the East Coast. While the screen is impressive—we even gave it a BOB Award in May—I wondered if it was enough to stand out in a neighborhood already teeming with sports bars, lounges, and breweries.

Blinders Sports Lounge opened in March on the stretch of Tremont Avenue between Tryon Street and South Boulevard that’s also home to Pins Mechanical, QC Pour House, and Hi-Wire Brewing. Around the corner, Sycamore Brewing’s two-story taproom is an all-day destination with coffee, burgers, live music, and an outdoor play area. Resident Culture South End, Charlotte Beer Garden, and Monday Night Brewing Garden Co. are all within walking distance. Plenty of places to eat, drink, watch sports, or play duckpin bowling.

But that’s not what Blinders’ owner Kush Anandani was trying to do. His background is in upscale hospitality. Originally from India, he’s a hotel developer and director of OmShera Holdings, a Charlotte-based commercial real estate firm. He’s traveled extensively and wanted to create a place that combined the energy of a sports bar with the aesthetic of a cocktail lounge and the viewing experience of a sportsbook you’d find in Las Vegas.

“The continued influx of people will only create more demand for more upscale amenities,” Anandani says. “This isn’t just a Charlotte thing—people across the board are paying more money because of inflation and the economy, and expectations are rising with that.”

Blinders is exclusively for patrons 21 and older, which separates it from surrounding breweries, and you won’t find jerseys tacked to walls or pinball machines in back. The 5,500-square-foot space has a 40-foot bar; recessed, linear lighting along the ceiling; and plush, leather banquette seating. Box seating must be reserved in advance and comes with a food and beverage minimum.

Anandani hired a consultant to craft the menu (“a well-known consultant in Charlotte, but that piece of it is confidential”) and went through seven or eight iterations over the course of two months. Instead of mozzarella sticks and baskets of wings, they serve Barbacoa Nachos, Tater Tot Poutine, Banh Mi Pork Belly Sliders, and Funnel Cake Fries. “With the drink menu, I was clear about focusing on bourbon and tequila,” Anandani says. “But the focus was always quality over quantity. We have seven cocktails and a handful of non-alcoholic versions that are more refreshing and less sweet. That’s a problem a lot—cocktails are way too sweet.”

He achieved his goal of opening in time for March Madness, and Blinders had 5,000 guests on its first weekend. “South End gets a bad rap—just 25-year-olds who party all the time—but if you look at office space in the area, there’s a lot of people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, too.” His first booking was from a business across the street that reserved a box for noon on opening day. “They came in with staff and clients, so we’ll target a lot more of that,” he says. “I anticipate a more corporate consumer.”

And that mammoth screen? They didn’t oversell it. Anandani or his manager controls it from an iPad with the swipe of a finger, and a DJ controls the entire sound system. It can show up to 24 games at once, one large display, or multiple combinations in between. While it’s primarily for sports, they’ll use it for watch parties and movie screenings, too. “My wife wants to have a Taylor Swift concert,” he says with a smile. “It was always part of the game plan to cater to women as well as men.”