Tonight on Spike TV is the special 'lost' episode of Bar Rescue where they will be showing the pilot of the show for the first time. Bar Rescue started airing on Spike TV in July of 2011, and this pilot was filmed in June of 2010. In the pilot episode, Jon goes to South Park Bar & Grill in Montclair, New Jersey. The bar has a hot head owner who is kicking both customers and employees out of his bar. He also doesn't seem to respect his employees or Jon Taffer's knowledge.
It appears that they renamed South Park Bar & Grill to The V Bar (short for Vodka Bar) during the makeover, but the name did not stick. The bar changed their name again to The Park Sports Bar not long after Jon Taffer made all of the changes. Lets take a look at some information, reviews, and updates for The Park Sports Bar since Bar Rescue came to their bar in 2010.
The Park Sports Bar closed in October of 2012 due to the bar losing their liquor license after years of rowdy behavior at the bar.
News and Links relating to the bar and the closure:
- Here are three preview videos of the episode on the Spike TV website, and Jon has his wife Nicole doing the recon as in other earlier Bar Rescue episodes.
- This Yelp review in June 2010 talked about a show filming at the bar, and stated that it was called "Bars on the Brink." So I guess that was the original working title for Bar Rescue.
- Here is an article that talked about the makeover of South Park and the name change to The V Bar. The article said the makeover was for a new series on Spike TV, and a comment in that article also said it was to be called "Bars on the Brink." Other comments talk about how crappy the bar was, and a supposed former employee claimed there were cockroaches everywhere.
- Here was the Park Sports Bar Facebook page, which was kept up to date until it shut down.
- Here is the owner Jeff's Facebook Page.
- The Yelp, Urbanspoon, and Foursquare reviews for the bar were not too good. People in the reviews and in the comments of articles said the location was great and they have one of the only liquor licenses in Montclair, but they didn't know how to run a bar.
- On May 30th 2012, "Prosecutor Kenneth Strait Jr. brought up 12 charges against the bar, including buying alcohol from a prohibited source and illegal drug use on the premises. The drug use allegation, as reported by The Montclair Times, occurred in 2009 when police on an ABC (Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control) inspection found owner Jeffry Melnikoff smoking pot inside the bar. Other charges include incidents initially reported over two years ago, including five reported bar fights, several with underage patrons. With each charge, the bar could face a 30-day liquor license suspension." (Link)
- On June 19th 2012, there was a city council meeting attended by about 50 neighbors of the bar who were objecting the renewal of the Park Sports Bar's liquor license. They contended that "blaring music from the bar and the profanity-laced shouting of its intoxicated patrons as they exit the place and hang around outside after closing has been disturbing their sleep for years." They also complained about "groups of anywhere from five to 30 "rowdy drunks" loitering outside the pub between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. on a regular basis." Despite the complaints, the liquor license was renewed with the only condition being that they had to hire a professional security guard outside the bar from 10pm to 2:30am.
- In October of 2012, Jeff Melnikoff plead no contest to the 12 charges against him filed on May 30th. This resulted in a 30-day liquor license suspension - 5 days for excessive noise, 15 days for a brawl outside the bar in December 2010, and 10 days for serving too much alcohol to a patron (Link). He closed the bar for good after that.
Conclusion:
Despite having a prime location and a hard to get liquor license in New Jersey (some people were saying it was worth about $700,000), Jeff let the trouble at the bar bring him to closure. The bar was in business for 12 years total, and closed a little over two years after Jon Taffer filmed the pilot episode at the bar.
*To see how all of the bars from Bar Rescue are doing, go to the Bar Rescue Update page, and also Like us on Facebook or Follow Us on Twitter to stay up to date with all things involving Bar Rescue.