"Bar Rescue" had another great episode this past Sunday. This whole season has been pretty great,  but this episode was really good and really weird.

This time around Taffer and crew traveled to a bar called "Ynot" in Everett, Washington. This bar, like all the other bars on this show, was thriving when they first opened, but now, they have fallen on hard times. The bartenders drink on the job, they give out free drinks and they don't listen to management. The kitchen staff is defiant and makes terrible, old food. The inside of the bar is falling apart and it's dirty. The kitchen walk in, instead of having an air tight door, they have a sloppily put together front door of a house door for the walk in freezer. That doesn't keep anything cold enough, so they have to throw out a lot of food.

The biggest problem though, the "Ynot" bar is located directly across the street from a 10,000 seat arena, and they still can't get any regular business. The owners, a boyfriend and girlfriend, were running this bar into the ground. Oh, and before I forget, this bar's biggest "attraction", was goldfish races. It was as stupid as it sounds.

When Taffer and crew come to do recon, they are not happy with what they see, obviously. The first thing they see is the goldfish races. This makes Taffer irate. He cannot stop saying how stupid and pointless this whole thing was, and I couldn't have agreed more with him. The patrons grew weary of the races very quick, and the other patrons that were not doing the goldfish races, they could have cared less. No one was paying attention, except for the boyfriend that was co owner. He was way too invested in these stupid goldfish races.

Then, Taffer sends in his recon spies. It was a group of about 8 people, that were going to a show at the arena in 40 minutes, so Taffer had them order multiple shots and food, so he could see how long everything took. The shots came out quick. Shots are easy to pour. But, the spies did not like the shots. They complained that the liquor did not taste good. But, the food took forever. And it wasn't like they ordered high end food, it was bar fare. They ordered pulled pork nachos, tater tots, basically, your typical bar food. The fact that this food took this long to come out is a problem.

As soon as the staff finished, the spies had to go because the show was about to start. They walked when the staff was bringing out all the food. After this, Taffer and his "experts" entered the bar and told the waitress that they would take all the food that was just ordered. The whole time all this was going on, the boyfriend owner was obsessing over the goldfish races, and the girlfriend owner was outside smoking cigarette after cigarette. They had no interest in running this bar. Anyway, Taffer and the "experts" tried all this food, and, surprise, surprise, the food was terrible. The tater tots were cold. The French dip was gross. The other food just didn't taste right, or it was way too greasy. But, the topping on the crap cake was the nachos. They were so poorly made and so cold, that Taffer picked up a huge pile of them, held it from the top, and it stood still like a concrete. It was so, so gross. Taffer even held it up to the wall and said they should use it as décor. The owners were embarrassed, as they should be.  

Taffer and crew walked through the bar, realized how gross and disgusting it was, he told the owners that if the place wasn't clean by morning, he would not rescue the bar. The staff worked all night, and I have to say, they did a great job of cleaning that bar. So, Taffer and his "experts" chose to stay. This time around, instead of forcing the owners to fire the employees stealing from the bar, the female owner straight up fired 2 employees without batting an eyelash. The other bartender quit, so they were sans bartenders. This posed a problem, but they were able to hire 3 new bartenders. Instead of doing a stress test, they did a bartender audition. I like when they do this. We get to see how good the new bartenders really are. Some were experienced, others not, but, for the most part, all 3 new bartenders tried very hard. At the end of the night Taffer asked the owners which bartenders they wanted to keep, and they kept all 3. That made me happy.

After the audition, the new crew got trained, and Taffer's staff did their whole renovation. When they reopened the bar, Taffer renamed it "Forbidden Bar and Grill". I hated this name. "Ynot" wasn't a good name, but "Forbidden" was a horrendous name change. Taffer's crew also changed the whole inside aesthetic to an Asian theme. This also made no sense. The new menu had bahn mi sandwiches, but that was about it as far as Asian inspired stuff in this bar went. It was nonsensical, hence this episode being very bizarre.

To no one's surprise, "Forbidden" was doing great at reopen, and 6 weeks later. The 2 owners came on and thanked Taffer for everything that he did, and said that the new bar was thriving, they even had regulars now. This was a good and weird episode. It is everything that I like about "Bar Rescue". Taffer yelled, people got fired, the bar was messy and the owners were a disaster. Keep doing what you are doing "Bar Rescue", because it is working.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. What does Ty watch, check it out here. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.