Author: Christan LeDuc | Staff reporter, Cincinnati Business Courier May 2, 2025
The owner of a 35-year-old neighborhood dive bar on Cincinnati’s West Side is selling the business.
Katie Rehm runs Kenny’s Sports Bar, located at 5870 Cheviot Road in White Oak.
“I just want to retire,” she told me. “The technology is outpacing me. It needs a younger owner.”
Rehm became the sole owner of Kenny’s when her husband Kenny Rehm passed away in 2018. The two purchased the business back in 1990.
“I went to school with my current customers’ grandparents,” she said.
At 66 years old, Rehm is ready for a change.
“We’re open from 11 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. So, fifteen-and-a-half hour days seven days a week. It’s just time,” she said.
Rehm said business is “phenomenal,” and that her customers are begging her not to sell, but she needs to do what is right for herself and her family.
Rehm is working with Sina Danesh of 3CRE on the listing. The 2,243-square-foot space has an asking price of $325,000. It includes furniture, fixtures, equipment and a D5/D6 liquor license.
Danesh said the business has a strong cash flow and generates good income. Annual sales in 2023 were more than $585,000, according to the listing.
Both Danesh and Rehm are looking for a buyer who’s willing to carry on the bar’s legacy.
“This bar has been a staple in the White Oak community for over three decades, and I felt it was important to honor that legacy by ensuring it ends up in the right hands,” Danesh told me. “Partnerships like this matter because they reflect a commitment to supporting small business owners as they move toward retirement.”
Although Rehm would like to retire as soon as possible, she doesn’t have a deadline for when she needs to sell before the doors will have to close.
“I would run it until I die if that were the case,” she said.
She credits the bar’s longevity to Kenny’s low prices and loyal customers.
“It’s always been a strong, steady, regular crowd, and my prices are really decent because I try and keep it blue collar,” she said. “So many places have gone to the $8 bottle or glass. The average person needs a place to go.”
Rehm also credits her strong team of eight bartenders and three cleaning staff for the success of the bar. Many of her employees have been with her for half a decade. Her longest-tenured staff member has been at Kenny’s for 20 years.
Although Rehm is sad to soon take a step back, she knows her late husband would be proud of the bar’s continued success and the impact it has had on generations of West Siders.
“It’s been a wild ride,” she said. “We’ve survived every downturn in the economy because the wonderful thing about a bar is whether people are happy or sad, they drink.”
