History Series / BarRescue

* WhatWereYouThinking: Many of the owners who decided to try their hand at the bar business without even a day's experience at it. The owners of J.A. Murphy's admitted that one day they sat at a bar and thought "well we like to drink, and we've got some money, so why not?"

* WithFriendLikeThese: This show serve as a cautionary tale to going into business in friends. Many partnerships start out as friends who wanted a good money making opportunity and results in one friend pulling all the weight and the other partner dragging it down. A key example is "Black Light District" where Gabe was 100% receptive to Taffer's changes and Dave was 100% defiant. Gabe says at the endthat he still sees Dave as a friend but he would never go into business with him again.
* WomenAreDelicate: The owner of Mandala Lounge believes this to the point where he refuses to bring in female employees. Taffer's expert, Mia Mastroianni, is quick to take him to task for this and floors him in a cocktail making race in both speed and quality.[[note]]In fairness to him, he indicated that he wasn't going to hire a female solely for her build. And he actually finished a hair behind her in the rematch featured on a "Back to the Bar" episode.[[/note]]

** Amongst the Bar Rescue "Alumni", one of the greatest successes, often cited by Taffer, is Spirits on Bourbon, in New Orleans, Louisiana. After being remade into its own individual identity, and getting its own easily identifiable drink and souvenir glass (The Resurrection), the bar has become a wild success, and reports now over a $1 million in sales a year.

** Even in the bars where Taffer can barely stand the majority of the staff, there are usually one or two employees whom he regards as being worthwhile. In a few instances, these employees are also the resident {{Butt Monkey}}s simply ''because'' everyone else is so dysfunctional that they take it out on them. Case in point: Bryan (a.k.a. "Syck"), the bouncer at O'Face (who keeps trying to talk owners into listening to what Taffer has to tell them, and ends up getting fired after the episode airs), and Cerissa, the server (who gets unjustly fired after she's physically assaulted by her own manager and returns to her job only to see the manager, whom Taffer forced the owners to fire, return to the bar after he had walked out), in "Punch-Drunk and Trailer-Trashed."

* {{Pilot}}: One was taped in 2010, but didn't air until June 2014 (as "The Lost Episode").

** P's and Q's Auto Body (formerly Artful Dodger/Radio) is designed specifically to resemble a Speakeasy, complete with a false front as a 1930's autos-shop and secret entrance manned by a look out (or in this case, the hosting staff). The name is a reference to the old term to mind your manners, or in Bar terminology, of "mind your Pints and Quarts."

** Everyone at O'Face, aside from one server, claimed that the bouncer was lazy, didn't do his job, and was the weak link at the bar; all the while, they ditched Taffer's training to drink in the staff room. It is also quite clear the main reason they think this way is because the bouncer was on Taffer's side.

** A close second (and third) are the two owners of O'Face Bar, who couldn't stop fighting with each other and their employees long enough to do their training. On top of that, they got drunk during business hours, encouraged their employees to drink while on the job, and refused to tell a customer what was in their "O-gasm" shots. Their most short-sighted moment, however, was when they decided to fire their server ''after she was attacked by their manager''. Basically, the server was fired out of favoritism for the manager.

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: This is Taffer's reasoning as to why he changed the brand for many of the bars that he has rescued. The most notable example is Piratz Tavern becoming Corporate Bar & Grill. Specifically, he stated that the pirate theme would've worked fine if they were in St. Petersburg, Florida due to the abundance of theme parks in the area, but since Silver Spring, Maryland has a large business district, he didn't really see it as being a good fit. (Guess who disagreed?)

* EpicFail: Jon's ExactWords in the "Back to the Bar" segment highlighting the Piratz Tavern (which had ''zero customers'' and a grand total of ''one'' seafood item on the menu!).

%% * BigScrewedUpFamily: They pop up from from time to time, but the family from O'Face in "Punch-Drunk and Trailer-Trashed" takes this up to eleven.

** At The Hideaway, Jon refuses to rescue the bar after realizing both the owners and the employees have no interest in telling the truth to him.

* WrongGenreSavvy: The manager of Stand Up, Scottsdale did not believe that a comedy club should solely be about comedy. While he does have a point,[[labelnote:*]]Creator/JonStewart, Bassem Youssef, and others who tackle contamporary politics will at times have a serious edge to their work[[/labelnote]] his ''delivery'' of such a point undermined him at every turn.

** The owner of TJ [=QUills=] hired his friends which as mentioned can make it difficult unfortunately these guys crossed lines even most people would put the friendship aside over. The bouncer didn't check [=IDs=] and got caught twice letting underage patrons in, the bartender would drink 1 shot per customer, and the worst was Spellman who would hit on female patrons and understandably scare them off. It's telling three people got fired this episode. Even Jon Taffer said the owner was a NiceGuy he just had no spine, luckily the outstanding new concept and decor along with his new management style has kept the place open to this day.

** But it is ''not'' beneath Jon to yell at a female owner if they deserve it. In the 8th season episode at Ace's Sports Hanger, he lambastes the female owner for permitting bad practices and not caring enough ''for nine years'' to do things properly with the food at her bar. In the same exchange, the expert he had on this bar stepped up in defense of a male cook she was scapegoating for the food mistakes she was making.

** ''Lona's Wardlaw Station'': Some fans saw Bill's firing as unjust. While Jon had proof of stealing, he broadly accused Bill of being the thief, with no proof it was him or exclusively him. He did prove himself to be unfit for management; firing someone for accidentally dropping a glass into an ice bin felt rather unfair, and a demotion for his prior incompetence would've been sufficient.

* Hope Spot: In "Life's a Beach", the one thing that goes right for Sean is that he learns how to make a popular drink with ease, only to forget come the stress test. And he wouldn't have even made it to the stress test, never mind through it if Jon hadn't convinced Mike give him a chance to see how he performs (since Sean kept spending Mike's money with no apparent plan to repay him).

* MakeAnExampleOfThem: Taffer often does this when he first arrives by firing the worst employee in the bar or forcing the owner to do so when the owner has been letting them walk over him.