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Beyond Tiki, Bilge, and Test / Beyond Tiki / Bar Rescue: Pirate Bar episode

Post #646305 by TikiHardBop on Tue, Jul 31, 2012 11:22 AM

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Caught the season opener of Bar Rescue and just had to see what people on TC thought of it. The gist is that there is a pirate-themed bar in Silver Springs, MD that is failing -- primarily because the operators are idiots -- and it's up the Jon Taffer -- who is also an idiot, but just not as much of an idiot as the owners -- to save it. He completely dismisses the idea of a pirate bar and turns it into probably the worst kind of bar my wife and I can even imagine: The Corporate Bar. Because nothing is more appealing to people stuck in cubicle hell all day then the thought of relaxing and unwinding in the friendly confines of The Corporate Bar! He also installs some kind of weird automatic cocktail-making machine in the front bar (because who doesn't want their cocktail to be made by a machine). He also has them using some kind of commercially-bought ice balls. He babbles on about the impurities in water f***ing up drinks, which I guess is news to me and all of those other great places that make cocktails without using one of his sponsor's product. And that's what any struggling bar needs is to have to buy all their ice from a vendor!

He also seems to think that lunch traffic is going to be the savior of the bar, not realizing that most people in that kind of office environment don't have an hour plus for lunch each day.

I would have loved to have Martin Cate to walk in and have Jon explain to him how it's impossible for a place like Smuggler's Cove to be successful.

Anyway, I kept thinking that in most people's minds, it's not a large leap to go from pirate to tiki and I kept recalling all the threads we've seen on TC over the years of people thinking of opening a tiki bar in their area. I have to wonder how prevalent Taffer's mindset is throughout the industry and how that might play into trying to open a tiki bar.

Anybody here have any thoughts on the subject?

And a preview here:
http://www.spike.com/video-clips/oac79u/bar-rescue-yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-dumb-sneak-peek