CHARLOTTE, N.C. — One of Charlotte’s most impactful slogan writers isn’t an ad executive or social media influencer, but the owner of a sports bar a mile away from Bank of America Stadium — a straight shot down a well-traveled, four-lane street.
Dilworth Neighborhood Grill also happens to be on the way from Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper’s home to the stadium, as the world learned in April on the first night of the NFL Draft. That’s when Tepper stopped at DNG, as the locals call it, to take issue with the message on the sign out front: “Please let the coach and GM pick this year.”
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Tepper’s pit stop — which included removing a Philadelphia Eagles hat from the head of a bar manager — prompted a wave of media coverage and a spike in DNG’s business. And it seemed to only further stir the creative juices of the sign’s author.
Matt Wohlfarth doesn’t hold a personal grudge against Tepper. The 57-year-old Florida native is a longtime Panthers season-ticket holder whose bar runs a game-day shuttle to the stadium. But Wohlfarth is first and foremost a businessman, and business is better when the Panthers are winning.
“This is not anti-Tepper,” Wohlfarth said this week at a corner table in DNG’s bar area. “This is, ‘I need business.’ And I feel like he’s getting in the way.”
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Like sports talk radio hosts and newspaper/internet columnists, Wohlfarth has carved out a unique place in Charlotte’s sports scene. Wohlfarth literally carved his 4-by-8-foot spot out of recycled plyboard and plastic kitchen panels.
“I was an art major, so I was creative,” said Wohlfarth, who moved from Fort Lauderdale to Charlotte in 1985 to study architecture at UNC Charlotte before switching to fine arts.
Asked about becoming something of a voice for Panthers fans, Wohlfarth said: “Isn’t that crazy?”
Wohlfarth built two signs at the start of the COVID shutdown in 2020 to let passersby know the grill was open for takeout and delivery. He also used them to document how many of his employees had returned to work.
“The cops would sit in the parking lot because we were very busy, very quickly with all the DoorDash and Uber (Eats),” Wohlfarth said. “So the cops would sit in the parking lot, I guess making sure people weren’t in here drinking. We’d have all the regulars come out and wait for their food on the patio.”
That coincided with Wohlfarth turning DNG into a makeshift grocery store, with rolls of toilet paper stacked in the windows and bread, milk and bleach also available for purchase.
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“At the beginning it was really impactful for the city because it was just showing how many people were coming back to work. This was a time that we needed that really bad,” said Jessica Schwed, a bartender who has worked since the onset of the COVID pandemic. “And then he started getting into more of the funny side of it.”
That funny side came with an edge that was initially directed at the city of Charlotte, which began roadwork outside of DNG shortly after the pandemic. Wohlfarth didn’t like the pace of the project or its impact on sales. So he let the public know about it, with one pithy commentary after another.
Free party for road crew if finished by 9/1/22.
The Empire State Bldg only took 410 days to build.
Day 437 road work. Only 3 years left.
When the construction eventually wrapped up, Wohlfarth turned his attention to the Panthers, who were in the midst of a playoff drought that is at six years and counting. But Wohlfarth had basked in the franchise’s glory days.
He and his former DNG partner were bartenders in the mid-1990s at South End Brewery, where half the restaurant was partitioned off for players, coaches and front-office executives of the expansion franchise. Former Panthers president Mark Richardson, son of the team’s founder, was a part-owner of the brewery.
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Wohlfarth has been a Panthers’ PSL owner since 1997, with four seats in the corner of the lower level. He was there in 2015 when the Panthers started 15-0 behind a MVP-winning season from Cam Newton that culminated with the team’s second Super Bowl berth.
“I remember sitting in the stands watching Cam and they’re doing selfies with the entire team on the sideline in the middle of the game. And we’re beating people by 30,” he said. “And you turn to the people next to you and you’re like, ‘You know this is never happening in our lifetime again.’ And you knew it was special. And so you just want a little bit of that to happen again because it’s so special.”
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Wohlfarth also knows what a successful season means for his bottom line.
“I would say the difference between a Super Bowl year like that and a Chris Weinke year or last year or this year is well into the six figures — profit, not sales,” he said. “So when you take away 100 grand or 200 grand, that’s a big difference.”
Wohlfarth said his first “cutting edge” message came after Tepper threw a drink at a fan in Jacksonville last season. “We lost so bad that Tep spilled his drink,” Wohlfarth said, reciting his slogan. “That was a good one.”
A few months later a couple of Wohlfarth’s employees would come face-to-face with Tepper when the hedge-fund billionaire came in with his driver on draft night. They stopped after seeing the “let the coach and GM pick” sign.
Wohlfarth had already left, not expecting a big crowd since the Panthers didn’t have a first-round pick. Tepper asked the hostess and manager Christian Kroot who was responsible for the sign, and removed Kroot’s Eagles hat. Neither realized they were talking to the Panthers’ owner.
“You could kind of get the vibe that he definitely felt some type of way about the sign but wasn’t trying to be overly aggressive or demeaning,” Kroot said. “But you don’t come in before one of the biggest days of the season to complain about a sign unless it rubs you the wrong way.”
Wohlfarth said it’s probably just as well he’d gone home. “I think it would have gone differently if I had been here,” he said. “Because he probably would have said, ‘I need you to take that down.’ And then I would have said, ‘I need you to start winning.’ ”
The incident drew media coverage and was the inspiration of a parody skit by Charlotte Squawks, a theater group that bills itself as “Saturday Night Live meets Broadway.”
But it didn’t silence Wohlfarth, who took another dig at Tepper a few days after the draft: Hats off to the new Panthers.
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Wohlfarth initially worded it “Congrats to the new Panthers” before hearing the hosts on WFNZ, a Charlotte sports talk station, saying he should have gone with “hats off.”
Wohlfarth also has been tough on quarterback Bryce Young. When last year’s No. 1 pick was benched after two games this fall, walkers and motorists driving by DNG saw this:
Mayfield 2-0. Darnold 2-0. Rhule 3-0. Young 0-2.
“That sign actually went up immediately after the game before anyone knew that Young was getting benched. So people were theorizing that this had something to do with it,” Wohlfarth said. “I think that if that were true, it was only part of the puzzle. I was just one more voice that said that.”
That may be overstating the impact of DNG’s sign guy, but Wohlfarth does have an audience: Each day about 20,000 vehicles pass through the intersection of Morehead and McDowell streets, where DNG is located, according to a city of Charlotte spokesman.
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Before he moved to the suburbs, Panthers center Brady Christensen was among them. “It’s an effective sign,” he said. “Everyone sees it. It’s right (on the way) into the city. It’s kind of crazy.”
Christensen got a kick out of Wohlfarth’s handiwork when he was critical of the roadwork, and even understands where he’s coming from with some of his Panthers’ barbs.
“We all want to win. The city wants to win. The players want to win. The media wants to win. Everyone wants to win,” Christensen said. “So I appreciate that. You can’t take anything personally when you’re not winning. You just gotta put your head down and keep working.”
It’s unclear whether Tepper feels the same as Christensen. When The Athletic reached out for a comment from Tepper or anyone else with the organization, the team passed. A friend unsuccessfully tried to connect Wohlfarth with Tepper.
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In the meantime, Wohlfarth — who jokingly said he looks a little like the Panthers owner — will continue supporting the team and calling it like he sees it. Good, bad or ugly.
After the Panthers won in Las Vegas in Andy Dalton’s first start, the DNG signage was: Best game in years. Thanks.
But after returning on the DNG shuttle last weekend after the Panthers’ third consecutive defeat, Wohlfarth was back to his sarcastic self: Gonna have to start winning if we want home field.
Wohlfarth conceded it was a bit of a “lazy” take that he might have recycled from an earlier sign. But in-season, Wohlfarth has to wait only seven days to try to be more creative.
“Sometimes you have to kind of filter him,” said Schwed, the bartender who said she especially needed to monitor Wohlfarth when he was taking on the city.
“He’s quirky,” she added. “So I’d come out sometimes and be like, ‘Oh, is it going to be cringey? Do I need to scold him and tell him that’s not politically correct?’ That was always kind of like when I’d drive in (saying), ‘Oh, what am I gonna see today?’”
What motorists and pedestrians see on Monday morning will depend on how the Panthers play Sunday at Washington. Schwed said she has friends and bar patrons who now will text her asking what the sign says at the start of the week.
But Wohlfarth already has an idea of what his last sign will be, whether it’s on DNG’s billboard or his tombstone.
I poked the bear one too many times.
(Top photo: Joe Person / The Athletic)
