shut it down

How I Fell in Love with the Daddest Show on TV

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Courtesy of Taffer Media.

When Jon Taffer is telling you your business is fucked, his eyes are wide, nearly bulging out of his head, his voice is high-pitched and stern, like a cartoon villain revealing his master plan, and his shiny hair, practically plastered to his skull, is unwavering. So is his message: if you don’t listen to me, your bar, your marriage, your mortgage, your children’s future, will all be lost, and it is your own damn fault.   Pardon my language, but this show is just so ramped up with Taffer-stosterone that it starts rubbing off on me. Of all the dad shows in all the world, I walked into Bar Rescue. And I’m here to tell you, if you haven’t yet, it’s waiting for you.

Bar Rescue—which is about to start its fifth season—aims to save dying, near-bankrupt, roach-infested, terribly run bars across this beautiful, beer-stained country, Kitchen Nightmares–style. And Taffer gives Gordon Ramsay a serious run for his (buckets of) money, yet Taffer’s tough love often softens to just love love. That’s what sets the shows apart (that plus some occasional bar-top dancing and undertones of alcoholism): Taffer is just a more emotional man than Ramsay, he likes to talk things out until everyone’s crying. It tugs at your heartstrings, really.   Taffer is a huge, physical presence, often rocking a pinstriped jacket over a black tee like some kind of mafioso school counselor, ordering a cosmo. He’s everything you want him to be in person: the googly eyes get wide, his hands gesticulate to some dance only they know, the hair ain’t going anywhere, and he makes sure to plug a Tafferism when casually convenient (“There’s something called mechanical dynamics, which is a phrase I’ve created . . .”).     I met Taffer at the Spike TV upfronts earlier this year at Cipriani, where the doorman tried so hard to convince me I must have been at the wrong Cipriani (surely I meant the café, where young ladies like me lunch with their rich grandmas?) that I was almost late to the interview. At one point, the burly bouncer interrupted my explanation with a patronizing, “Can I speak now?” It was an uncomfortable interaction, one that probably would have been reprimanded on Bar Rescue.  Despite the epic, manly opening sequence of the show, on par with a WWE wrestling match with all of the husky-voiced narration throughout, Bar Rescue has developed a huge viewership of women like me. Taffer said some episodes average 48 percent female audiences, who know the show but can’t identify what channel it’s on.   And sure, one of my favorite parts is the remodeling segment, when a shitty strip-mall biker bar is transformed into a swanky speakeasy. Taffer unrolls a scroll of blueprints: he’s studied the area and knows what it needs. A mermaid-themed tiki bar! An upscale cocktail bar with fireplaces! An America-themed pub run by Irish sisters! One hundred percent more speakeasies! And finally, we see the construction, all of which happens within 48 hours. “I sign off on every bar stool, every paint color,” Taffer said. But it’s also the intense family dramas that explode, unfold, and get tucked into place within each hour-long episode that keep you tuning in.   “It’s a little Shakespearean in a way,” Taffer said. “Bar Rescue is really storytelling, of human drama, human struggles, turnarounds, and redemptions; it’s just a bar backdrop to it!”   The combination of exploding drama and the interior-design porn makes it one of the most un-Spike TV programs on the network. Then there are the women’s issues dealt with on the show. Last season, a cocky bar owner admits, on camera, that he has no women on staff because they cry too much, can’t make cocktails as fast as him, and are a general hindrance to the bar business. So Taffer brings in one of the best female bartenders in the country and makes them compete in a drink-making race. She kills him.

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“In the bar business, I’ve had a lot of single moms work for me over the years,” he explained, “and I’ve seen a lot of single moms get screwed, by whomever: life, work, etc. So I’ve always gone out of my way, and I don’t want to sound fatherly, but when single moms work for me, I would go out of my way to provide stability for them, protect their dignity. I felt a responsibility as their employer. That comes out in the show a lot. People that know me know that I’m really big on protecting women’s dignity, and I don’t like that stuff at all. Women get abused in bars, disrespected in bars; they’re treated as objects in bars . . .”   There’s an episode where Taffer’s wife, Nicole, does recon with a friend at a Vegas bar with a particularly skeevy bar owner, whose behavior goes beyond flirting and into sexual harassment territory. Taffer rushes into the bar and let’s him have it in the highest octave he can go, while the bar staff cowers like mutts in a thunderstorm. It’s a Tafferstorm.

“I stick up for women, naturally I just do,” he replied when we mentioned the confrontation. He didn’t give up on the scummy place, though. He rescued it. (The co-owner of the bar then went on to sue Taffer for allegedly attacking him during airing, claiming he was egged on to act “outlandish” by producers.)   There’s something so endearing and fatherly about him; he seems to actually care about a lot of the people who made the ill-informed decision to open a bar with no business experience whatsoever. He’s also churning out episodes, books, acronyms (“I call this P.O.D., point-of-difference”), and trademarks (no word yet on whether the “butt funnel” has been trademarked) faster than some of these clumsy bartenders attempting to shake out two margaritas at the same time.   Above all things, Taffer is a businessman. You realize how much of the show is razzle-dazzled with sponsor partners, as the bartenders suddenly have a shiny new bar stacked with an assortment of Crown Royal Apple, or Smirnoff Whipped Cream–flavored vodka, or Ciroc Coconut. But hey, it’s what makes it possible for Taffer to jump to 30 or 40 bars a year to give the people what they want: more Bar Rescue.  The Taffer truism is this: the reason your bar is failing is because of you. And until you acknowledge that, like the first step in A.A. (where you, er, might be headed soon), you can’t be saved. That philosophy is his own, too, especially on a show carefully calibrated by ratings-hungry reality TV producers: “If there’s something people feel I should do, and I feel it’s something I won’t do or lacks integrity, I won’t do it. And I’ve walked off set. So I feel that the show will survive or fail based on me and the decisions I make. And I don’t want to fail because of somebody else.” Solid Dad advice, if we ever heard it.