This past Sunday, Jon Taffer and crew visited the bar "Russell City Bar and Grill", with plans to rescue it. Right off the bat, you could see the problems.

The episode started out with the bartending staff and the owner yelling over one another and arguing about nonsense. We come to find out that none of the employees respect the owner. They walk all over him. They drink behind the bar. They try and make fights happen on a regular basis. They fight with each other in front of the customers. The staff is a mess. It doesn't help that the owner is, as I have said, a total pushover. He seems like a meek man, and he definitely lets his staff tell him what to do. To make matters worse, he seems to check out at times. He lets the crazies run the asylum basically.

The owner has a friend of his, "Church" that he hangs out with at the bar every night. The two are old friends, and Church is there every night. Church gives nothing to the bar, except frustration. He walks behind the bar and pours his own drinks. He takes money when he wants. He yells at the bartenders. And, in this episode, he started a fistfight with one of the bartenders, and it was violent. The bartender asked him nicely, twice, to leave from behind the bar, but Church ignored him. After a third time, the bartender, who was totally in the right in my opinion, started to throw punches. Church refused to listen, and he acted as if he was an owner. The bartender beat the hell out of him, and I loved it.

Once the fight was finally broken up, Taffer and crew walked in to assess all the damage. This was a shit show from the start. First off, the bartender that beat up Church quit, and walked out on the spot. He just vanished. Then, instead of telling Church to leave, the owner blamed his bartenders for the bad behavior. Taffer was completely baffled. He could not believe what was happening.

The next day, the experts came in to try and train the people, after a long night of cleaning. The bar and the kitchen were an absolute mess. the bar top looked like it hadn't been cleaned in months, and the kitchen was ten times worse. There were grease traps filled everywhere. The kitchen was an absolute fire hazard.

So, after they cleaned, the experts came in to do work. The mixologist trained the current staff on some simple drinks for stress test. The chef expert changed the menu to some easier, more cost effective menu items. During stress test, it was a nightmare. Food and drinks were being made okay, but they were going to the wrong people, they were late and they were bad. The main problem was the owner. The bartenders actually did a very good job of trying to keep up. They were making drinks as fast and as well as they could. The kitchen staff was even stepping up, but the food was not going to the correct place, or if it was delivered to the right place, it was late and cold. This all fell on the owner, as he was the runner that night. Instead of owning up to his mistakes, he blamed his staff and told them that they were "making him look bad". This guy was a piece of work. Ranging from not kicking Church out of his bar, falling asleep during training, asking his parents for more money even though he was almost 300,000 dollars in debt, basically everything he did, it blew up in his face. But, he took no ownership.

When Taffer and the experts laid into him, he actually seemed to start to figure it out. He took accountability. He professed to paying his parents back and to be stronger as an owner. He legitimately made a 180 on his personality. It was astounding.

As Taffer and crew were fixing up the bar, we got the first ever cut away to a black screen with writing that I have ever seen. The owner and his crew were talking about the new changes, and the owner said that they were going to be splitting tips from now on. This is pretty customary stuff at any type of service industry job. But, the staff freaked out on him. They yelled and called him names. They were furious. The owner pushed back, but he was totally valid. He explained how much better this would be, and he was right. But, the whole crew, except the kitchen staff and one bartender, quit on him one day before reopen. He hired a new staff, and it was for the best. The new staff worked very hard at relaunch, and they seemed to be much more even keeled. I didn't think that they would save the bar, but they pulled it off at the last minute.

Taffer changed the name to "Fogline", another dumb name, and gave them a bunch of new POS systems, all typical "Bar Rescue" stuff. After the new bar opened, sales were up and things seemed on the up and up. This was a crazy episode filled with yelling from everyone, except for Taffer. Taffer actually kept his cool, shockingly.

Come back next week for the next review, and watch "Bar Rescue", it's been so great this season.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. His advice on saving a bar is do not open the bar to begin with. We have enough crappy ones already. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

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