FRANKLIN, Ohio — Game day can be a sacred experience, so finding the right location to watch the Bengals play is critical.
While some go to bars or watch in their living rooms, one Franklin fan has taken things up a notch.
“It’s just my team,” said Craig Rolfes. “I'm from Cincinnati, born and bred here, and it's the team I love.”
Rolfes has decked out every nook and cranny of his garage in Bengals decor.
“Obviously, it's my ‘Craig Cave,’” he said. “Some people got man caves, I got a ‘Craig Cave.’”
Rolfes started working on the project around 2019. The garage is complete with a “Joe Mixon clock” and a “Joe Burrow bar.”
The pieces are unique. Rolfes has made nearly every item with reclaimed wood.
“All of this is stuff that I have taken out of people's trash, out of dumpsters because I do construction work,” Rolfes said.
He said his passion ramped up as the world slowed down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“He has a gutter business,” said his wife Kelly Rolfes.“The supply and demand was absolutely ruined, so he really didn't have a lot to do during that time. This was really his savior.”
“My wife let me go crazy,” Rolfes said. “Most wives wouldn’t. Mine did.”
Kelly Rolfes said the space is special to her husband.
“When he's stressed or when he's anything he comes out here and it makes him feel comfortable,” she said.
The work Rolfes has put in has offered him a way to celebrate a team that’s meant so much to him.
“I've always been a Bengals fan since I was knee-high to a grasshopper,” he said. “This team's everything I love.”
