Bar Rescue: Jon vs. Bar Chefs
January 7, 2025 5:12 PM - Season 1, Episode 1 - Subscribe

Veteran nightlife expert Jon Taffer is on a mission to save bars on the brink of shutting down. Bringing in over 30 years of hands-on experience, Jon empowers bar owners to eliminate health hazards, shoddy staff and bad branding to turn failing bars into profitable businesses.

There is a particular reality TV genre in which an abrasive host visits a failing business, administers tough love, provides them with new equipment courtesy of the show's sponsors, and leaves the owners with a brighter future.

The greatest example of the genre that I've ever seen is Bar Rescue. Host Jon Taffer takes full license of his freedom to belch out whatever abuse he likes - i.e. "THIS IS THE REASON YOUR WIFE LEFT YOU!"

The show's YouTube channel runneth over with Tafferology. Here is just an appetizer.
posted by Lemkin (4 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is one of my favorite "hungover in a hotel room" bingewatching shows. I don't have cable so that's really the only time I encounter it (and look, I have too much pride* in myself to actually watch it voluntarily).

The Piratz Bar episode is a thing of local legend. I sadly never got to go to Piratz because none of my friends wanted to have fun. I did go to Quarry House when they occupied that space after their original space had a fire.

I am waiting for season 9 to be streaming somewhere where I don't have to pay extra for it because Ashish Alfred is in a few of the episodes. Pre-pandemic, we were regulars at the Bethesda Duck Duck Goose (since closed, sadly, but the Baltimore one is still going) and I've enjoyed watching his career as a chef and a restauranteur (even his early failure of a restaurant. He admits that place was bad, though).

Famously, Alfred is sober, which is why I'm amused he's on Bar Rescue.

I do like Bar Rescue far more than Restaurant Impossible because Bar Rescue is meaner.

*I don't really, but I like to pretend.
posted by edencosmic at 5:39 PM on January 7 [2 favorites]


The Piratz Bar episode is a thing of local legend

When Jon asked the owner, "Do you want to be a pirate or do you want to send your daughter to college?"... and the owner couldn't answer...

That was almost poignant. How many of us ever believe in a dream that devotedly?
posted by Lemkin at 7:56 PM on January 7 [3 favorites]


The people behind Piratz 100% believed in the dream. (The Maryland Renaissance Festival is a big deal and not that far away. It's a good life for a lot of people.)

The space is really a terrible one and so many other concepts have gone in and out of there (I think it may be vacant but it's probably going to be demolished anyway) but "Corporate Bar" was such a troll-y concept and I loved it. That was nothing anyone anything wanted in that area.

At the time, that part of Silver Spring was still very much catering to people who lived in the area, and not the people who worked there. People who worked for Discovery (which was based in the neighborhood at the time) just went home after work.

I like a lot of Silver Spring but it was kind of becoming interesting pre-pandemic. 2020 kind of killed so much of that off. I still go see movies at AFI but the rest of it is pretty corporate now, sadly.
posted by edencosmic at 6:31 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]


This is a show that is played on cable at night, in a string of like 8 episodes in a row. I dislike Taffer intensely, but if I turn it on and stick with it to get any idea of a problem, I'm stuck on that channel until I notice it's 3:55am. I will say he is a good motivator to clean out the grease traps, get a working refrigerator, and stop giving out shitty drinks for free.
posted by rhizome at 1:16 PM on January 13


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