Spike TV 'Bar Rescue' Detroit/Ann Arbor Area Episodes

**buckster1986** · November-13-15, 11:48 AM

Four episodes will feature four different Detroit/Ann Arbor area establishments. They have announced two of them, anyone know what the two other locations are?

11/15 "Vulgar Vixens" [[The Hooch, Dearborn Heights)

Jon confronts a foul-mouthed owner in a failing Michigan bar with a confusing theme, whose vulgarity and rudeness drives away female customer and degrades her staff

11/22 "Unnecessary Toughness" [[The Arena, Ann Arbor)

Jon is forced to deal with the hot-headed owner of a college alumni bar whose fiery temper keeps his staff on edge and patrons away.

12/6 "Boss Lady Blues" [[TBA, Detroit)

Jon helps a former psychologist who now runs a Detroit jazz club, but her interfering family undermines her leadership and allows her staff to be lazy and complacent.

12/13 "Bare Rescue" [[TBA, Detroit)

Jon helps a failing Detroit strip club looking to stimulate profits before the entire business goes bottoms up.

Detroit News Article:
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/ent...ghts/75601332/

**dtowncitylover** · November-13-15, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by buckster1986

12/13 "Bare Rescue" [[TBA, Detroit)

Jon helps a failing Detroit strip club looking to stimulate profits before the entire business goes bottoms up.

Yeah, hopefully he let that fail.

Some of the reviews on Yelp are negative towards what Bar Rescue did to the Arena. That's pretty comical.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-arena-ann-arbor-2

**G-DDT** · November-13-15, 12:19 PM

Real quick: The first episode of this horrible intervention-style [[Big Brother-Knows-Whats-Best-for-You) Chef Ramsay/Dr. Phil/Supernanny reality show involved a bar my brother often frequented. The only "catch" that they can hype and blow-out-of-proportion for drama-lovers sake was making it about a bar where the owner and the gals talk bawdy and call each other sluts and such. All of which is unnecessary sensationalism.

The bar was called the Hooch located on the Taylor/Dearborn Heights border [[spoiler alert: after it's makeover, it is redubbed "The Proving Ground"). It was never my type of place, but hey, my brother grooved on it, and he met a few cool folks [[except for one, who proved to be even too bawdy for the gals there) there.

One thing he observed quite clearly: in the earlier times he hung out there, there was mostly a white clientele, and meaningless fights and disruptions did often occur. As more African American folks frequented the place and music like dub [[I think he meant the more popular "dubstep") and hip-hop were being played by D.J.s, the vibe got way more mellow, and fights were reduced to a minimum.

**G-DDT** · June-21-16, 12:23 AM

As was pointed out, many didn't like what happened to the Arena. As for "the Proving Ground', "Back Beat", and "The Power Strip"-they all closed. http://www.barrescueupdates.com/

My brother frequented the Hooch when it was open. Chandra was almost never there; she was no more crude than the average barkeep [[maybe less than some of the more "Honest ?" ones). Shenanigans were very infrequent. It was Taffer and co., that suggested they play up the bawdiness factor well past eleven on the scale for entertainment sake. The exposure was about as helpful as observing a struggling colony of ants with a high-powered magnifying glass under the hot sun.

They had to remove their Facebook page because braindead troll idiots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coOxrm4CU0Uall across the country in huge force descended upon it and clogged it [[all within a short span after the first airing of the show) with stupid attempts to be funny and imaginative. They complained about only what little they saw from the show, so Chandra [[who was hardly ever there) was targeted. They made up outlandish stories about how they [[from PA or CA or NY or WA) came out of their way with their family to this dinky watering hole in Taylor [[yeah, not promoted as such-and no family would ever go in there, nor was it ever outfitted to be fit for such) only to be "horribly treated by Chandra" or have ruined food [[food mentioned they never carried), and of course, some turned it into a ridiculous game of how crude and outlandish they could take it [[much like they were toasting Bill Brasky but quite the opposite and directed at Chandra and her bar-ie. about how they saw "Chandra being sodomized by a midget in the back where the food is prepared"). My brother watched all of this with sad disgust.

**G-DDT** · June-21-16, 12:27 AM

Regardless, the Hooch was a dive, but it wasn't one deserving to be ground into obliteration. Many idiots not even from here [[including Taffer and Co.) will use this to play up how wrecked and unmanageable Detroit is. However, if anything is revealed, it is a far more transcending lesson: a greater emblematic depiction being displayed here. One that most genuine Detroiters know true to the core of their being. It is one that shows the vast cultural struggle of Detroit vs. phony superficiality. It shows how perfunctory and lost the premise of Taffer's recent flawed purpose in life and his show really is. It's way simply doesn't jive with a city that values it's rustic inability to bend with flashy corporate hype and revamping. We rightfully and naturally resist it.

Persons who aren't from here can't comprehend it. They think we are trying to pass ourselves off as "magic Negros" or "the every Indian is a Shaman" premise. Yet, reductionist non-romantic mindsets can't conceive of things like Soul or the "oil of Sincerity", or even Slack [[or maybe something far more ineffable to be fathomed, contained, or labeled). I mean, it's not the freakin' Holy Ghost here, but we have hustled and struggled hard to uphold it. It's that kind of struggle that gives us so much cherished character that pampered, phone-screeching upper echelon management execs are so alienated from.

Sorry to be worked up lately and also be cheerleader here. I'm seeing far too many folks get on DY to vaguely slam on this or that with agendas guised within nebulously abstract premises or goaded by some outsider's stupid essay of what they think it's all about here.

Think of beloved dives we talk about on these forums. The once proud Indie music scene that had other cities talking about us in the 90's were catered to by dives like the Gold Dollar bar. No one asked to distill and bleach it into some contrived venue we can find in any whitebread tourist trap in this country.

**softailrider** · June-23-16, 08:14 AM

Originally Posted by buckster1986

Four episodes will feature four different Detroit/Ann Arbor area establishments. They have announced two of them, anyone know what the two other locations are?

11/15 "Vulgar Vixens" [[The Hooch, Dearborn Heights)

Jon confronts a foul-mouthed owner in a failing Michigan bar with a confusing theme, whose vulgarity and rudeness drives away female customer and degrades her staff

11/22 "Unnecessary Toughness" [[The Arena, Ann Arbor)

Jon is forced to deal with the hot-headed owner of a college alumni bar whose fiery temper keeps his staff on edge and patrons away.

12/6 "Boss Lady Blues" [[TBA, Detroit)

Jon helps a former psychologist who now runs a Detroit jazz club, but her interfering family undermines her leadership and allows her staff to be lazy and complacent.

12/13 "Bare Rescue" [[TBA, Detroit)

Jon helps a failing Detroit strip club looking to stimulate profits before the entire business goes bottoms up.

Detroit News Article:
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/ent...ghts/75601332/

I thought that being the owner of a strip club was paramount to owning a printing press and running off money. I'm not a frequent patron of those places but when I have been in them the 100 bills seem to be flying around pretty good, and don't the [[ho) dancers have to pay the management at the end of the shift to work there?

How do you mess up a business like that? [[ guess I should watch the show )

**drjeff** · June-23-16, 01:57 PM

Originally Posted by softailrider

I thought that being the owner of a strip club was paramount to owning a printing press and running off money. I'm not a frequent patron of those places but when I have been in them the 100 bills seem to be flying around pretty good, and don't the [[ho) dancers have to pay the management at the end of the shift to work there?

How do you mess up a business like that? [[ guess I should watch the show )

I don't really go to strip clubs, but the show didn't really help their business because you got to see what the three strippers employed by the place [[that's right, just three, one of whom got fired on the show) actually looked like. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

**Honky Tonk** · June-23-16, 02:17 PM

Originally Posted by drjeff

I don't really go to strip clubs, but the show didn't really help their business because you got to see what the three strippers employed by the place [[that's right, just three, one of whom got fired on the show) actually looked like. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

You should see what they look like the morning after.

**EastsideAl** · June-24-16, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by drjeff

I don't really go to strip clubs, but the show didn't really help their business because you got to see what the three strippers employed by the place [[that's right, just three, one of whom got fired on the show) actually looked like. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

That bar "rescue" was of the horribly named Chix on Dix [[renamed on the show with the barely-better name, Power Strip). That may be one of the most pitifully-located bars in the entire Detroit area, sitting across Dix from a bunch of rusting gas tanks in the smoggy haze from the Rouge plant across the fetid Rouge River. And a couple of blocks behind it now is the giant smelly Marathon refinery that swallowed up the nearby neighborhood.

It's clearly a bar for tired workers just off shift, and there is no earthly reason why anyone else would chose to go there. Certainly the lovely dancers they can convince to work in a place like that [[in competition with this area's many more luxe palaces de strip) aren't going to keep many customers there. You would think that just the sight of the place would send any potential "rescuers" running the other way.

But it did seem to make for some good visuals of the bar rescue guy riding in heroically to save some 'struggling' working class Americans [[in symbolically 'struggling' Detroit), who also happened to be picturesquely pitiful and bicker at each other hilariously.

Despite the rescue though, it was apparently recently closed and is for sale.

**EastsideAl** · June-24-16, 12:28 PM

That jazz bar they "rescued" was the also-horribly-named Jazz Katz [[what's with the stupid semi-pun-y bar names?) in Southfield. Which the show renamed as Back Beat and changed into mostly a piano bar. The place was a real crap show, with a rude and argumentative owner, bad service, and terrible food. It closed pretty soon after the makeover, because no amount of TV magic can save you from bad owners, bad customer experiences, and horrible financial management.

But it's a real shame because they did have some great local musicians playing there, and Detroit's wonderful musicians [[the level of musicianship around here is often pretty incredible) really need all the venues they can get these days.