Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": Liquid Lounge Edition

Taffer and crew got back to one of their regular episodes this week, and I have to say, it was a good one. They traveled outside of Nevada finally, and they ended up at the "Liquid Lounge" in Long Beach. The bar's backstory was typical. They were making a ton of money, they had new customers every night, everyone loved the food and drinks, the same story told during every cold open.

Then, also as usual, one of the bartenders wanted to be the owner, so he bought the bar from the outgoing, soon to be retired owners. He spent his life savings on the bar, which they said was 400,000 dollars. But, earlier in the episode, the man claimed he inherited 400,000 dollars from his folks, so I do not understand why that was all that he had in his life savings. Anyway, as soon as Rob took over, "Liquid Lounge" went down the drain. By all accounts, Rob was a good guy to a fault. He was a total pushover. He let everyone walk all over him. Even his favorite employee, who genuinely seemed to try hard and like him, walked all over him. Don't get it twisted though, Lola was a great, great worker. She even brought her husband on to help out with basically everything that they needed help with, and he was always available. I don't know if he got paid, I assume he did, but he worked his tail off. In fact, the staff at "Liquid Lounge" was legitimately good at their jobs. But, when you have an owner that will let you skip out early, not always have you clean, not hold employees accountable, things tend to go awry, and that is exactly what happened.

Now, there were no mice or rats, but this may have been the dirtiest bar on all of "Bar Rescue". This place was an absolute nightmare. Everything seemed to be falling apart, and a lot of that had to do with the massive mold problem they had. The fans were even falling out of the ceiling because the mold was so plentiful. The wall paper was tearing everywhere. The stools were a mess. The bar tops and the bar were nasty. The kitchen was a total nightmare. The bowls they used to "ring" their margaritas, I gagged when they showed what was inside of them. It was disgusting.

After Taffer and his crew, food expert Tiffany Derry and drink expert Rob Ford, stormed in and laid waste to poor Rob. He didn't even know what hit him. He was like a deer in the headlights. And, because he is such a calm and chill guy, he did not fight back and he never raised his voice. After Taffer was done screaming at him, and he was most definitely screaming, Rob literally took all the blame. It was his fault the bar was dirty, not making money, his employees had no respect for him, he was too nice, everything he owned up to. It was a nice change of pace from other owners or employees that always want to fight with Taffer. Before leaving the crew to clean for the night, Taffer, Derry and Ford all got in a few more nuggets of how bad this place was run. Taffer and Derry were throwing food left and right and Ford was just as disgusted as I was from what he saw behind the bar. The whole crew, including Rob, stayed and cleaned all night to get ready for training.

Taffer arrived early ish the next day, but before they could get to training, he took a pool cue and banged it against the wall. I thought this was odd. They had cleaned all night, and the bar looked much, much better. But, when he banged that cue on the wall, there was an explosion of ants. They were everywhere. So, Taffer lost his mind again, and brought in a pesticide crew. They were able to fumigate without having to close the bar for more than a day.

The stress test had to be postponed, but they rescheduled it for the next night. The staff got some mild training. Ford showed them some easy drinks and Derry showed the chef a simple fried shrimp plate recipe. The doors were open, and stress test began. Everything seemed to okay, at least for a stress test, at first. Lola was pumping out drinks, only having to redo a few, and the kitchen was getting the food out. But, there was trouble around the corner. Rob never took down names for the food, so it was dying in the window. Lola was pumping out drinks, but we came to find out that only one person had paid for their drink. No one was charging anyone, and this was all on Rob. Rob had again shit the bed. He again took full responsibility, and he finally confessed that he needed to be more of a boss and less of a friend.

After hearing this revelation, Taffer got his people to fix up the bar for re launch. The "Liquid Lounge" crew gathered outside, and it was revealed to them that the name was changed to "Tidal Bay: A Beach Bar". That is not one of Taffer's best, but given the location, it wasn't horrible. The inside looked brighter and they had 3 new POS systems, new soda guns, new speed wells, everything was updated. And when they reopened, things went great. I expected that because, as I said earlier, the staff was already good, they just needed proper training. Even Rob began to be a bit more managerial. He was great during reopen, and so was Lola She was exceptional in fact.

For the 6 week check up, the bar sales had increased by 20 percent in both food and drinks, and Lola got a raise andpromotion to manager. This was a very good, old school "Bar Rescue". I want more episodes like these.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He regularly walks into places of business and slams a pool cue against the wall. He is not looking for ants, he just hates business walls and pool cues are his weapon of choice.

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