For Dallas-Fort Worth residents who recently noticed a White Rhino Coffee shop in their neighborhoods, it might seem like it simply appeared.
After the first location opened in Cedar Hill in 2007, company co-founder Chris Parvin took a pause before a big push: Waxahachie opened in 2018, then Dallas’ Bishop Arts District and Arlington in 2020; Fort Worth, Uptown Dallas and downtown Dallas in 2021; and Midlothian and Deep Ellum in 2022.
In late September 2023, the shop with the teal cups opened in Frisco, marking 10 White Rhino locations in North Texas and making it Dallas’ most prolific local coffee company. Other Dallas independent shops like Ascension, La La Land and White Rock Coffee are close behind.
But Parvin’s team is already focused on what’s next: Garland, then a second shop in Arlington, then a look outside of Dallas-Fort Worth.
Someday, there could be hundreds of White Rhino Coffee shops, Parvin says.
But it started small, when Parvin was a practicing lawyer in Cedar Hill without any coffee shop experience. He partnered with co-founder Ryan Hennesy, who came up with the money for his side of the business after winning $50,000 on Wheel of Fortune. Parvin has since bought Hennesy out of the business.
Parvin says his interest in coffee was simple. “I liked the inherent social aspect of coffee — different kinds of people sitting at the same table,” he says.
Growing a coffee company
While customers might bristle today at how some coffee prices have soared to over $5 a cup, Parvin says the economics of running a coffee shop require “an enormous amount of transactions” to make each of those lattes add up.
Today, their 10 coffee shops in North Texas sell tens of thousands of lattes a day, they say. The beans were roasted at a White Rhino-owned facility in West Dallas. Coffee is selected by a team of tasters who score it with White Rhino’s director of coffee, Gage Johnston.
At that same facility, chefs in a commercial kitchen make all of White Rhino’s baked goods and sandwiches. That can be rare: Many indie coffee shops in North Texas hire bakeries or taco shops to make their food. La Casita Bakeshop is a popular croissant-maker; Tacodeli is a common taqueria; both deliver to dozens of small coffee shops around the region. At White Rhino, they own the food-and-drink process by making their own pastries and roasting their own coffee.
It can only work for companies that have at least a handful of coffee shops, Parvin says — and more is better.
Breakfast bites include avocado toast and a maple-glazed chicken-on-a-biscuit. Snacks come in the form of vegan oatmeal cream pies, biscuit-and-gravy bites, and seasonal options like pumpkin whoopie pies. Two White Rhinos, in Uptown Dallas and Waxahachie, have a larger menu than the others.
As Parvin looks to grow the business further, he wants to sell coffee beans wholesale to restaurants and other coffee shops. He also wants to raise money for local charities.
“We think we’re something rare,” he says. The business name, White Rhino, refers to the rare breed.
The company’s “giving story,” as Parvin calls it, is growing, too. Chief Marketing Officer Mary O’Connor has the new title of Chief Giving Officer, and she will eventually be the executive director of a nonprofit foundation at White Rhino. Parvin says he feels “called” to support nonprofits that help with homelessness and human trafficking.
He recites the company’s mission statement easily: “We exist to build profitably-growing businesses so that we can give back to the kingdom of God, make the world a better place, and enrich our employees’ lives.”
The newest White Rhino is at 8075 FM 423, Frisco. Find others at whiterhinocoffee.com.
