We, my wife Martina and I, Bénédict, opened our little Bar called Rhinoçéros in mid of November 2017 in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin.
After becoming totally hooked by stories of our Dj and musician friends that were coming back from Japan, we opened Rhinoçéros, a place dedicated to music, good times and the good sound.
Our concept is an hommage to the Japanese Jazz Kissa – and Bar – Culture ジャズバー , small joints serving coffee and whisky, while elderly hosts are playing jazz records on a hi-fi system.
We are both coming from the HipHop / House & Disco scene, but we dedicated the Rhino music selection to it’s roots:
Jazz and what comes with it, like Blues, Soul and Funk.
The concept is easy: the heart of the Bar are two beautiful Altec Lansing A7, one round Micro-Seiki Turntable from ’81 and a rare Thöress F2a11 tube amp!
We play records from our own collection, or we have guest selectors. No DJ’s as such, as we always play A – and B – Side of the record on one only turntable.
We’re hosting music events, like No Room For Squares, dedicated to genre defying records, Astral Traveling, for more spiritual jazz and some record releases session (like the Mingus for Strata/BBE, Jazzanova, International Anthem, Impulse!, Verve, ECM, etc). Our own listening session is called “Jazz Cat Symposium” and it is a friendly gathering where music is paired with great and rare wines open by the glass.
It could happen we also host little intimate live concerts.
We are happy to welcome you in our cozy place and we hope you will enjoy as much as we do hosting you.
Martina & Bénédict
If you want to get more details on our story, Meike Peters did a very good interview of Bénédict in February 2022. You can find it here:
https://www.meikepeters.com/meet-in-your-kitchen-rhinoceros-bar-jazz-and-benes-shrimp-cocktail/