I saw the show, and I figure this episode has to be fake! A woman owns a bar/restaurant with a pirate theme-she hasn’t made any money in 6 years. the food is terrible, the drinks are bad, and the place is (mostly) empty. For those of you who haven’t seen the show, its a bar in Silver Spring, MD. Anyway, it was the standard transformation (experts come in and redesign the menu, train the staff, and re-launch the reborn restaurant). Only in this case, after initial success, the owner reverts to the money-losing pirate theme.
Was this story totally fake?
I walked by there two weeks ago. If I recall correctly - it was open, but not busy.
I’ve been there before. Certainly not fake. It’s the sort of place you’d find renfaire employees working in the off-season.
Thanks for the links-the show really blurred the line between truth and fantasy…but it seems that the owner was quite delusional. How could you run a place for 6 years and never turn a profit? Most restaurants go under in 3 years or less-if they survive, its usually because they finally are able to make money. The way the “piratz” bar was set up, it is hard to imagine how they could make money.
I drive by it all the time, my neighbors go there with their kid; they can have a beer and the kid loves the pirate theme.
I think the show’s host (John Taffer or whatever) is a total dipshit who seems to know little about actual bars, but in my time I have met quite a few delusional, egotistical bar owners who manage to stay in business despite themselves. I’m guessing for entertainment sake the problems are overstated. That, or the owners have rich parents (which I’ve also run across).
Overstated problems are mentioned in the second link.
I’ve been there several times. Whether the show is BS or not I cannot say, and I have not been there since the show was there, but I can confirm that the food I had was not good. Literally overcooked noodles out of a box with canned tomato sauce dumped on top.
The only good thing about the place was the back area where you could sit and smoke but otherwise it’s a below-average bar with a ridiculous theme. The employees’ pirate schtick gets old after about 30 seconds.
I’ve watched the show and he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. He mentions things like why the temperature at which the beer is dispensed matters for minimizing the amount of foam and he goes into how the bar needs to be designed for proper traffic patterns. They do spend a lot of time on the show promoting the sponsored products. One of these is glassware that he said was unbreakable, so I looked it up. He’s talking about plastic glassware, which doesn’t appeal to me and I’m not even a drinker; I like drinking glasses made out of real glass.
Some of the stuff is as obvious as the stuff they talk about on the restaurant makeover shows. On those shows, they go through the menu and figure out the cost of the ingredients to see if the dish is profitable and on this show he measures the size of the poured drinks to determine if the pour is too generous. That seems obvious. And also that the staff needs to be trained; they did one in Las Vegas where the bartenders were shown on TV not knowing how ti mix basic drinks like a screwdriver. (Assuming that’s not faked, though.)
I love that show.
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I definitely believe that they highlight the “suckiness” of each place early on.
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I bet that some of the places are not really struggling. Who wouldn’t want some free renovations and a good bit of exposure.
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During editing I’m sure they build a narrative concerning: a manger who’s slacking; a bartender who has real potential; a dissatisfied employee that later finds inspiration; an asshole that storms out but then comes back and apologizes; etc.
It is a TV show and they usually manage to get me interested.
Some of the stuff is interesting. I never knew what the typical profit margin was on drinks, or how they highlight the most profitable menu items.
The owners often do stuff that scares away customers or see their bar as their own personal social club. One bar, Headhunters, was by far the most disgusting. More shocking was the fact the owner didnt even PAY HIS EMPLOYEES- supposedly they lived off tips :eek: Why the hell would anyone put up with that?!
I guess what I mean is there are bars, and corporate liquor places designed for maximum profitability (I went back and read the links - homogenized and soulless sum it up. It’s also telling that he named his creation Corporate). He seems like he knows what he’s talking about, but reading the article suggests he’s solving problems that don’t really exist. Some of the stuff seems like it comes from someone who knows little about bars (unless they’re trying for some product placement 
), like the novelty drinks, pour your own beer, and video jukeboxes.
Bars are different than restaurants in that you can have the absolute exact same product at home or tons of other locations. Atmosphere is king and he seems to lack any creativity in this department.
I still watch the show though, if only to watch his face skin start flapping around when he starts yelling (which he’s starting to do in like the first 5 seconds).
I can’t imagine who thought that “Corporate Bar & Grill” was a good name.
Yeah, I think that’s the very worst rename of the entire series. Seems almost like they just chose that name to piss off the owner and staff. . . it’s is just PERFECTLY represents EXACTLY what they DID NOT want to be. . . CORPORATE!?
I was thinking he was going to take his usual lazy approach and call it “The Spring” or “The Silver Bar” or something equally obvious and uncreative. It still would have been worlds better than “Corporate”.
It wasn’t just a name:
Did he really think people want to unwind in a recreated office atmosphere? Even a pirate theme sounds better.
…and such small portions! [/old joke]
mmm
That was my take on it. The Piratz episode is the only one I’ve seen where he seemed personally offended by the theme and he probably wanted to stick it to the people dressed like six-year-olds, as he put it. I haven’t seen the latest season, so it’s possible he’s gotten as pissy with someone else by now.