THE BULLETIN • MAY 6 - 12, 2021
TV • PAGE 21
Taffer aids pandemic-stricken Vegas
saloons in Season 8 of ‘Bar Rescue’
Jon Taffer dials down his brand of tough love a few
notches as he comes to the aid of pandemic-stricken Las
Vegas establishments in Season 8 of Paramount Network’s
“Bar Rescue.”
Airing Sundays, the new season finds the straight-talking
Taffer in his adopted hometown helping local saloons come
back from the brink of ruin after more than a year of little
to no income. And unlike in previous seasons, where owners
were largely to blame for their businesses failing, this crop
of proprietors found themselves in dire straits through no
fault of their own – just a COVID-19 pandemic that has
devastated the hospitality industry, especially in Sin City.
“There is a real emotion this season and honestly, more
of a thoughtfulness this season in the way I’m going about
this,” Taffer explains. “I’m not trying to demoralize people,
I’m trying to build them up much more than having to take
them down and then build them up again. On the other
hand, the depth to which people are in trouble is greater
than in a normal season.”
Indeed, these are people who have not only lost their
businesses but in some cases also their homes, thus forcing
their families to move in with relatives. In one case, the
owner’s children were forced to sleep on the floor above
the family restaurant. In another, a woman who was eight
months pregnant was on the verge of being foreclosed on.
And while most problems could be traced to the
pandemic, Taffer stresses that owners weren’t blameless and
that a little proactive management might have enabled them
to circumvent their issues.
“When you look at the pandemic,” he says, “there are
operations that succeeded and survived. Maybe they
put away a few more dollars for a rainy day. Maybe they
operated at better margins. Maybe they were more nimble
in the way they marketed. But some still stayed open. ... In
some cases, had they operated their businesses differently
or better, they would have survived the pandemic better. So
there was still a bit of bar rescue in that I’m still challenging
them on many of the things that they do and the ways
they do them to try to improve their business. That hasn’t
changed.”
In the end, Taffer still gets a charge out of seeing a bar
that he helped come back from the dead. A hug and a few
kind words are his reward and doing it in the city where he
lives is even more gratification.
“We’re a singular economy here,” he says. “We’re strictly
based on tourism and everything else in the city just
supports the lives of those in the tourism business and
the hospitality business. So this city was impacted more
significantly than any other ... so focusing my efforts on Las
Vegas made a lot of sense.”
tastytv
BY GEORGE DICKIE
Jon Taffer