YMMV / Bar Rescue

• Accidental Aesop: Jon Taffer's abrasive and humiliating tactics do work often times, but just as often, calmly talking it out produces equally effective results which sends the message "Not everyone is responsive to the same teaching methods".
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Was the chef at "Pineapple Hill Grill" really irresponsible, or was he senile? He seemed to be getting up there in years, and when Jay Santos yelled at him for cooking moldy ribs, the guy responded with a Non Sequitur that even Jon Taffer seemed confused by. While this would still make him unfit for the job, if it were him being senile, he really might not have realized he was serving moldy food.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Mike from "Piratz Tavern" was criticised as still "Talking like a pirate"... when he had a Barbadian accent. Many people on sites such as YouTube asked how this was possible. Quite possible, actually.
• Archive Panic: The first two seasons had ten episodes apiece but Season 3 had 40 episodes and 4 had 58. You have some catching up to do.
• Broken Base: A few of the bar changes can cause mixed reactions amongst both fans of the show and customers who visit the bars. Put simply, there will always be long time customers who don't always like the change of something familiar:
  • Piratz Tavern/Corporate Bar & Grill is the chief example. On one side, you have the people saying that Jon Taffer was right to chew out the staff as acting childish and too much rebels against normal society, wanting to live out a fantasy for a bar better suited for an ocean location or Renaissance Festival. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the view that Taffer was overly critical and insulting of them, causing them to become defensive to every single change instead of just correcting what needed to change (food, drink making, staff, and maybe a few tweaks to the theme) and was more interested in making an example out of the staff (with some even pointing out that Jon might have intentionally neutered the pirate theme and replaced the bar with a soulless non-identity out of spite when rebranding; see Jerkass Has a Point below). The fact that the Piratz staff posted a video on YouTube of them burning down the Corporate Bar & Grill sign and singing about killing Taffer certainly didn't do anything to disprove his claims of them being childish and immature. This becomes more apparent given that that A. Maryland, being a Mid-Atlantic state with the Chesapeake Bay within an hour's drive of Silver Spring, wouldn't be entirely out of place for a nautical themed bar and B. Years after the change, they're still in business despite changing back to Piratz. However, C. Piratz struggled for years, forcing the owner (along with her husband and teenage daughter) to move into her parents' basement and D. a follow-up in 2015 showed, among other things, their menu had one seafood item and they were still struggling to get by while leaving a market untapped and ends with the owner asking Taffer to give them a second chance, which undermines the point somewhat. Finally there's E. there's the fact that Piratz Tavern ultimately walked the plank in April 2015 and has closed its doors for good.
  • Taffer and the show in general starting with the 2013-2014 season. Later episodes have lapsed somewhat on the bar science aspect, and seems to be playing up the conflicts more, not to mention Taffer's Large Ham entrances yelling at the owner after his undercover customers discover some disgusting or under performing aspect about the bar, especially for fans of Kitchen Nightmares who are more familiar with Gordon Ramsay's preference of going into a restaurant first, and sampling things for himself.
    • Taffer made things worse when he caught flak for railing against enhanced unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Mia Mastroianni and Lisa-Marie Joyce, two of the long-time expert mixologists. And as of 2020, though he's only starred in two episodes, newcomer Tommy Palmer for his Adorkable factor and constant smile.
  • Syck from "O-Face" is beloved by fans for being the Only Sane Man in the series' most infamous episode and openly defying the terrible staff. It says a lot when fans are relieved a person got fired without thinking they deserved it.
  • Ashley from "Fort One Bar & Lounge" is equally popular for her Ascended Fangirl status, being able to carry an entire Stress Test by herself, and her Brutal Honesty regarding her then-boss's behavior.
  • John and Jonathan from "Paladino's" are two of the most popular owners in the series for their Adorkable nature and hilarious confusion over basic tasks despite being cancer scientists in everyday life. Being some of the most receptive owners to Taffer's changes earns them some favor too.
• Friendly Fandoms: With Kitchen Nightmares and Hotel Hell, two other programs that feature a loudmouthed hospitality professional trying to save failing businesses in that sector. Any Bar Rescue clip on YouTube will likely have comments wishing for Jon and Gordon Ramsay to do a Crossover of some kind. Amusingly enough, one of the food experts that Taffer's brought in, Chef Jay Santos (you'll recognize him for having dyed his hair blue), competed on Hell's Kitchen and as of season 19 is the Sous Chef of the Blue Team!
• Harsher in Hindsight: All the times Jon Taffer has worked closely with Anheiser-Busch become this when he vilified Bud Light for their partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: This actually occurred briefly once after the redesign. Most notably, Gina, the co-owner of MT Bottle/Bottles & Cans, hated that the bar was remodeled to embrace the redneck country feel it had (Taffer liked some of the "redneck ingenuity" additions that her husband, Tracy, had made to aid in things such as disposing of empty beer bottles, and ran with it). She wanted a more upscale style place, and took a while for her to accept and embrace the changes. (When Joyce visited the bar, it had become MT Bottles & Cans.)
• Jerkass Has a Point: Many fans and commenters on YouTube reuploads have pointed out that, despite Piratz Tavern desperately needing a massive image change, Jon's rebranding to "The Corporate Bar and Grill" isn't particularly interesting, memorable, or eye-catching, and that the interior lacked any draw or distinct features. Although everyone (except the owners and staff of Piratz) agrees that the pirate theme was never going to work for the bar, many also agree that Jon screwed them over by giving them an incredibly unappealing redesign that left them with nothing else to work with.^note Some have suggested that even as little as a less formal name, like "9 to 5 Bar and Grill" or "After Hours", would have been enough to draw in the after-work-businessperson crowd that Jon was attempting to attract, and that good service could have brought people back after the name got them in the door. Some even think that simply just toning down the "pirate" theme and making it more of a seafood restaurant or fish & chips place would have been better.
• Jerkass Woobie: Max from "Celebrities" was extremely aggressive on social media and hostile towards his customers, but he used to be a normal and successful owner until he got conned by a man pretending to be a homeless veteran he raised 20,000 dollars for. He was simply caught in a difficult situation and let the incident get to him and let his standards slip.
• Nausea Fuel: Easily rivals Kitchen Nightmares in terms of disgusting work environments. Two bars in particular that stood out were Headhunters (which was so thoroughly infested with cockroaches that exterminators had to be called in) and Fairways (whose kitchen was so filthy that mushrooms were growing in the freezer). More under Squick.
• Never Live It Down: Chilleen’s On 17, despite being one of the bars remaining in business for more than a decade since, is best known as the place where some idiot rode their horse inside.
• One-Scene Wonder: While we're never told which cameraman it is, fans love the one from "Bug Bite" who continued filming while being chased by a drunk underage patron for his commitment and the fact that it's regarded as one of the funniest scenes from the show.
• Squick: Filth, grease, spoiled food, vermin dead and alive... this show has it all:
  • While a number of bars have their hygiene issues, "Headhunters" was just plain unsanitary. From cockroaches ending up in the liquor bottles to mold in the ceiling, almost every inch of the place was enough to get the entire place shut down by any public health authority on the planet. Worse still is that the owner either didn't care or actually encouraged the filthy environment because he deludedly believed that his intended clientele of college students wouldn't care about cleanliness.
  • The kitchen at "Fairways" was unbelievably disgusting, so much so that it makes the ones on Kitchen Nightmares look downright sanitary by comparison (the health inspector with 14 years experience that Taffer brought along said it was the worst kitchen he had ever seen). Every inch of the place was covered in sort of dirt, grease, slime, etc. But the worst was the walk-in freezers. One had such bad mold that Taffer and the others started coughing as soon as they entered, and the other freezer had mushrooms (the 14th listed safety hazard) growing out of the wall. ^note Fairways was ranked #1 on Taffer's Top 10 list of the most disgusting bars he encountered during the first three seasons of the show.
  • Taffer and his experts started to notice foul odors as soon as they walked into the kitchen at O'Banion's Bar & Grill. The smell was coming from the grease trap, which hadn't been cleaned out in years and was now full of sludgy, rancid, decomposing cooking oil. Even the Roto-Rooter guys Taffer called in to clean it out were amazed by how disgusting that trap had become.
  • The Martini Brothers/Federal episode featured a landlord who kept a bag of food grade crickets in the kitchen's refrigerator and ate them by the handful.
  • The Freaki Tiki took things to a whole new level, where the kitchen relied on an outdoor fryer, a cook who spread the sauce on the pizza with her hand, the sewer lines were constantly leaking and held together with tape, and near the foot of the bar Jon's experts discovered a used condom.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • Jon Taffer chews out a bartender at OBanions for not wanting to train because she only got 3 hours of sleep. She points out that she only works part time, so it makes perfect sense that this is not her top priority, and it's a false equivalency to compare her to the owners who have it as their top priority when their houses are on the line.
  • Ryan from "Swanky Bubbles" uses the word "we" when explaining the failure of the bar, much to Taffer's annoyance he's casting any blame on his partner John. Ryan was largely to blame for the bar's state, but he and John are co-owners and with John was making several crappy decisions as well such only being there two days a week and not changing the theme from a champagne bar after the trend died out despite being the original owner.
  • Multiple bar owners and viewers have criticised Taffer's proposed redesigns as being fairly generic and bland looking - And not just Boring, but Practical either. On one hand? Taffer is right that a business's job is to make a profit, but there's nothing wrong with having a theme or aesthetic.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • In about half the episodes, owners or staff have this reaction at first to Taffer's plans, especially when it comes to name or theme changes. In the end, however, most of them are happy to agree with most of Taffer's changes and agree that things are a lot better now.
  • Piratz Tavern. The staff and (especially) the owner resisted Taffer's proposed changes throughout the episode. By the end of the episode, the owner started to sabotage the relaunch despite the very positive reception it was receiving. It got to the point where she flat out told some of the customers that she hated the change. This would slowly affected the other staff members as well. When Taffer confronted her, she told him that she was still unsure if she would accept the changes. As it happened, she changed the bar back to its old style at the first possible opportunity.
  • Gipsy/SBLV's owner Paul. He hated the changes so much, he left before the relaunch, came back two days later after filming, and shut the place down.
  • Subverted with Kris, one of the co-owners of The Underworld, a Halloween/horror-themed bar. He had this reaction at first when he saw that the name and the design of the front of the bar was going to be replaced and was about to read Taffer the riot act. (He actually feared winding up with a corporate-themed bar, similar to the Piratz Tavern makeover, or a Martini-type place, similar to Club Platinum.) The second Taffer tells Kris that they are becoming a Zombie Apocalypse themed bar named The End, his face instantly lights up like a kid on Christmas morning who just got his most favorite gift. "Underworld who?"
  • Another subversion occurred with Oasis Hookah Bar. Taffer originally told the owner and staff that a hookah bar would not thrive because of the location and market. There was initial resistance to the idea, but the owner and staff decided to give the new idea a shot when Taffer said he was going to relaunch the place as Moroccan-style nightclub called Taza. The owner's and staff's reactions were very positive when Taffer unveiled the new bar.
  • A number of bars haven't quite agreed with the name changes only, and either revert back to the old name or combine the old and new names together. Otherwise, they keep every other change Taffer has given and taught them.
  • Lonie, owner of the Underground Wonder Bar, clearly did not like her bar being overhauled and remodeled to fit in with its location on Chicago's upscale River North neighborhood. She seemed to be coming around once she got inside and during the reopening, but the epilogue showed that she changed the name back just as soon as Taffer was gone (in violation of a contract she and her son had signed, no less).
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Tracy in "The Bottomless Pit" yes her dad was an ass who was driving the bar into the ground, but she kept on insisting he forgive others for their wrongdoings while clearly refusing to consider the option of forgiving him for his even when he was making honest efforts to change. She came off more as a petulant child rather than a responsible bar owner.
  • Jon Taffer himself falls into this trope at times. He has a tendency to run in guns blazing and humiliate, devalue, and emasculate the people he deems most responsible for a bar's failings, even when he doesn't have all the information. This sometimes results in him blaming the wrong person for what's going on, such as in "Second Base" and "The Hideout", where he blames the manager for the owner's failings. His attitude even causes an innocent manager to quit in "The Hideout", and it takes the whole episode for the manager to return. In plenty of instances, like "RJ's Replay", he defines the owner by their failure and treats them like they never had any honest success in their life when they actually have. He's also been criticised for being somewhat against themes. Sure, he may be somewhat justified when the theme is clearly hurting business, but his lines about how businesses should not have a "soul" in "Piratz" before he remodeled it into a wholly-generic "Corporate Bar & Grill" makes some people view him as fitting the stereotype of the by-the-books businessman with no imagination.
• Values Dissonance: The show's dim view on bars that try to double as family restaurants or have an '18 and over' night. The United States has a high alcohol age requirement of 21, which is steep by the standards of most of the world, so trying to appeal to people under the age of 21 opens bars up to major liability issues for little benefit. As a contrasting example, the United Kingdom has a minimum drinking age of 18, and people as young as 16 are allowed to drink alcohol in a restaurant setting if it is served with a meal and an adult orders it for them. Thus, a pub that wants to serve food to families and older teenagers faces significantly less risks in doing so, and "family pubs" are indeed common in the country. For that matter, most stateside chain family restaurants have attached bars as well.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: One of the issues that pops up from time to time on the show and crossing over into Wrong Genre Savvy. Bars may be part of the overall restaurant industry, but your clientele is much more narrowly focused to adults and serving primarily drinks. Yet whether out of misguided decorating ideas, or intentionally trying to also double as a family restaurant, some owners forget this:
  • Blue Frog, pre-remodel and rename to The Local, had the owner's mother make a rather poor attempt at going for a classic American look (similar to, say, a Cracker Barrel family restaurant). Having a bunch of children's games plastered all over the bar doesn't say to people "Hey, come in for beers and cocktails!"
  • Piratz Tavern, given the dressing up as pirates by the staff could be mistaken at being aimed at families with young children to a certain degree (though it's apparent that they've gone about trying to avert this, since changing back to Piratz from the Rescue's redesign as Corporate Bar and Grill).
  • On a similar note, Characters Quarters (renamed and redesigned to Moonrunners Saloon), with the cartoonish theme and lettering on the outside. It could have been mistaken for a children's party center or a costume shop.
  • The Chicken Bone was flat out pointed out in the episode about the fact that it came way too much off as a family restaurant when there were actual family restaurants nearby. They were renamed to simply "The Bone" to try and help differentiate the location, but went back to The Chicken Bone and shut down in 2014.
• The Woobie:
  • Syck and Cerissa, the bouncer and bartender from O'Face were the only remotely functional staff members, and boy howdy did they suffer for it. Cerissa was physically assaulted by the drunken manager, and then immediately fired because the owners told her to her face she deserved it. Syck was the only voice of reason throughout the entire proceedings, and had the misfortune of hearing the rest of the staff talk smack about him behind his back. (But Wait, There's More! Matt caught him being interviewed about the abandoned rescue and was none too pleased.) Not only was Syck fired not long after filming, the owners re-hired the abusive manager that Taffer forced them to fire. Jon himself admitted he felt really bad for the two Only Sane Employees.
    • To a lesser extent, the bartender Dave. While he was a problem, his seemed to be more of low intelligence rather than just being a flat-out terrible person. Throughout the episode, he endured verbal and in the end, what was revealed to be physical abuse by the owners.
  • The staff from Metal and Lace (formerly Headhunters) Bar also deserves a mention. They were working for an owner who has his head so far up his ass that he still did not pay his employees after the show ended, and then they were put out of the job after the bar closed a little more than a year after the episode aired.
  • The owners of Rhythm And Brews: they get abused by a Jerkass biker gang, one of them had his house foreclosed twice and lost his car because of the failing business, one was straight up homeless and slept on a couch in the basement of the bar and the last had to pick up a second job in telecommunications to survive.
  • Chris from "Down And Out In Vegas". Unlike most owners who are arrogant and/or clueless, Chris was mourning the death of his stepson which caused him to spiral into addiction. Taffer even sympathized him, and went uncharacteristically easy on the guy.
  • Van from "All Twerk, No Pay" was a once-great owner who lost his way after several bad decisions he made in an effort to keep up with the growing competition causing his bar to degrade into a low quality strip club. Not once does he get defensive or get mad at Taffer. He simply just wants to help provide for his family and inadvertently put a burden on his whole family in that effort.

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