Maryland’s Piratz Tavern First of 10 Bars Being Rescued by Jon Taffer’s Spike TV Show
They might have thought of him as a scallywag at times but without him, the Piratz Tavern in Silver Spring, MD might have gone down without a fight.
The themed bar was dead in the water – a waiter even lost an eye during a swordfight with a fellow employee – and rudderless with management that made the place like a ghost ship.
And that became Jon Taffer’s first project for season two of “Bar Rescue,” the Spike TV reality show.
It airs Sunday, July 22 at 9 p.m., ET/PT. There are 10 shows for the new season.
Taffer and his crews of experts – chef, mixologist, DJ, hospitality consultant and even his wife and daughter – visit venues in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in the show’s second season. Taffer has nearly three decades of experience in the food and beverage, hotel and hospitality industries and gives his expert advice and makeovers to try and turn around their failing fortunes.
His style can be challenging and abrasive, tho he’s hardly the same screaming meanie as Gordon Ramsay in the “Kitchen Nightmare” show on Fox. Nor is he as overall easy going as Robert Irvine in the Food Network’s “Restaurant Impossible.”
I’ve been to two places Taffer has revised, the Canyon Inn in Yorba Linda, CA; and Breakwater in Redondo Beach, CA. The former made me wonder why the heck he would bother with this place; it’s a out-of-place dive bar on the edge of a high-end community in Orange County. It looks like a cleaner version of an old dive. Taffer changed the name to Canyon Saloon and after the show departed, the owner changed it back to Canyon Inn.
The latter is located on the Redondo Beach Pier, which any local can tell you barely attracts any patrons, even from the influential locals in the surrounding beach cities. Instead, the young and fun crowd in that area goes to better bars in Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach. It’s never really taken off the Taffer touch certainly improved the attitude of the place. Previously, when it was a fake Irish bar (Irish in name only, certainly not in personality) called Kilkenney’s, management was defensive at any suggestions or criticism. After Taffer’s visit, the staff could not have been friendlier.
I did some research on the Canyon Inn and found the bar owners feel the confrontations with staff and management shown on the program was worth the tradeoff in publicity. Bottom line: It’s been good for sales. Another bar in the area, the Olive Pit in Orange, CA, is featured in season two, the year that bar celebrates its 50th anniversary. It, too, is expecting a spike in business from Spike.
View full episodes at the show’s website. Its Twitter hashtag is #BarRescue.
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