In my most favorite episode of Bar Rescue ever, Jon heads to Margate, Florida, with a mission to save Gerri’s Sports Pub, owned by Jerry and Alina Oles. This local dive bar has been a neighborhood staple, even before the Oles bought it. Like a lot of Bar Rescue stories, the bar had initial success because it was an already established business when Jerry and Alina bought it. However, without any knowledge of the bar and restaurant business as his excuse for laziness, Jerry neglected general upkeep and re-investment in the property, and now, 20 years later, the place looks like a dump. The couple who emigrated to the United States from Poland, now find themselves struggling to keep their bar, their retirement, their legacy, and their American dream alive.

During the show’s introduction to the bar, we hear Alina say that they work seven days a week but there’s no money coming in. She jokingly says to Jerry that they will need to work until they die, but it isn’t really a laughing matter, and regular viewers know that Jon would shut that type of humor D.O.W.N.

Gerri’s Sports Pub is nothing fancy; actually it’s quite the shit hole. When I first watched this episode, I thought Jon went a little overboard yelling at Jerry, but during a closer second watch, I can see why Jon got upset. Jerry seems to see his place as the quintessential neighborhood dive bar with a no-frills, laid-back vibe, but as Jon so honestly puts it, Gerri’s “is the most unappealing environment I’ve ever seen.” He says it’s an “insult to dive bars,” and it looks it. During recon, Jon shows us first-hand how dirty, worn, and disgusting it is.

The place is so gross, Vinny the bartender asks Jon’s recon guys if they brushed their teeth earlier to try to account for the weird taste of the Bloody Mary and then offers them a “clean ashtray” to use as a plate for their pizza, while the owners sit right next to them at the bar. This prompts Jon to comment, “They’re not even trying to do anything right here.”

Gerri’s is one of the few bars where customers can still legally smoke inside, thanks to exclusions for existing bars when the smoking laws changed. This exception has turned the bar into a smoky relic that, as Jon eloquently puts it, “smells like a toilet.”

During recon from the van, Chef Jennifer Murphy asks why everything is “so yellow.” Jon says it’s because of smoking, and I know this firsthand as memories of my grandmother’s neighbor, Evelyn, flood my mind. Evelyn constantly had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and I’ll never forget her because she had white hair, except for her bangs which were yellow from the cigarette smoke. I never saw the inside of Evelyn’s apartment, but it probably looked a lot like the inside of Gerri’s Sports Pub, and the thought of it made me vomit a little in my mouth.

To add insult to injury, the bartenders smoke behind the bar, and as Jon reminds everyone, that is, and always has been, illegal. Vinny the bartender is shown smoking one second and then serving drinks the next. Everyone in the recon van notices he doesn’t wash his hands. Vinny later confesses that he’ll never smoke behind the bar again because “When Jon Taffer walked in, I almost shit my pants.” This might be the most disturbingly honest thing any Bar Rescue person has ever said, besides Jon, that is (IYKYK).

Of course, when Jon heads in to confront Jerry, he immediately zeroes in on the smoking issue, emphasizing to Jerry and Alina that it alienates all the non-smokers, which equates to about 85% of all Floridians and almost all women. Jon anticipates Jerry’s rebuttal that his current customers like smoking, and before Jerry has a chance to mention it, Jon hits him with the idea that it’s not the current customers’ views on smoking that matter—it’s the views of the ones who aren’t there that matter. As Jon mentions, this is an easy fix, though, because the bar is in Florida where the weather is nice enough all year round to put a few benches outside, pipe a little music, and keep the smokers satisfied.

As Jon goes through the litany of filth, he gets pretty agitated and throws a chair and a table to let us know how upset he really is that Jerry has squandered away his retirement and legacy by doing absolutely nothing except calling Jon to fix it. Jon’s words sting as he illustrates why the bar has “ZERO asset value” and is worth absolutely nothing, even if Jerry wanted to sell it.

Jon calls Jerry an idiot, and Jerry doesn’t like it, arguing that he’s not stupid. Later Jon asks Jerry’s wife, Alina, if she thinks Jerry is stupid or lazy. She says lazy, which agitates Jon even more because he can fix ignorant, but fixing lazy is a whole other issue.

Jerry promises Jon that he’ll listen to everything Jon says and that he’ll do what Jon tells him to do, but, as usual, I don’t buy it. Jerry proclaims Jon has opened his eyes to see things he didn’t see before but, as Jon often says, anyone can tell if something is dirty and needs cleaned. Jerry has chosen to ignore the grime for twenty years, and I don’t believe a couple promises from him will prevent him from going back to his old ways once Jon has remodeled the bar and moved on. See for yourself how shallow their commitment seems, rah rah rah:

During the staff meeting the next day, Chef Jennifer Murphy finds moldy pizza crusts in the refrigerator, and the recon guys ate pizza the night before. Bartender Mary Ellen explains that she didn’t give the recon guys moldy pizza by carefully selecting a crust that wasn’t moldy, but she didn’t throw out the other moldy ones because she’d have to pay for them out of her check. In the video below, you can watch Jon go from zero to 60 in a second. This kind of illegal practice upsets him almost as much as cross-contamination with raw chicken, and Jon is at his best when he righteously defends employees. He calls Jerry out for it and demands it stops, laying the law down with, “He does not take money from you anymore, EVER!”

Jerry seems hell-bent on listening to Jon and improving his establishment, perhaps at Alina’s urging, because it sure seems like she’s the one egging him on. This season seems to focus on “worthy” owners who are misguided, uninspired, or ignorant of the food and beverage industry rather than those who are drunk off their asses or belligerent womanizers, but they seem to be picking just another sort of nasty person.

Jerry is taking money for bad food out of his employees’ checks. He breaks the law, allows his workers to break the law, never fixes a thing, and won’t listen to anyone else who has told him the place is a shit hole. His responses are mostly, “He’s right,” and “Yes, Mr. Jon.” He’s very agreeable and provides testimony to the camera about how right Jon is and how his eyes have been opened, but I am skeptical, very skeptical. I wonder what Jon is really thinking about Jerry and this rescue.

One thing that Jon points out that seems to be true is that Jerry has some amazing employees. Mary Ellen works the day shift and while it’s illegal, which we know from other episodes of Bar Rescue, she brings in her own food and kitchen equipment to make sandwiches and breakfast foods. Tammy, another bartender, brought in the pizza oven.

Chef Jen likes Tammy’s ideas but wants to elevate the pizza into something fresh and delicious, which, given the mold and clean ashtrays for plates, shouldn’t be too hard. They go with flatbreads. Without a TurboChef, though, it’s going to take nine minutes to bake each one. Regular viewers know that a good ticket time is under 12 minutes, so you don’t have to be a bar scientist or a mathematician to accurately predict what’s going to happen during the stress test.

Jon gets so upset during stress test, he shuts it down and won’t even accept Jerry’s explanation, screaming, “Jerry, you’re the worst operator I’ve ever seen.” Jerry tries to say he did the best he could, but Jon won’t accept that either. “No, you didn’t do it the best way you can. You NEVER planned. You NEVER cared. Tell them the truth.” Jerry, of course, says “It’s true,” then apologizes and says Jon is right, and that he learned a very good lesson. Pfft.

The next day before the one-on-one with Jerry and Alina, Jon tells us he has no confidence in Jerry’s ability to run the bar. He sees Jerry trying, but that’s about it. Jerry says he’s realized how lazy he’s been and how much he didn’t know, but he’s learned a lot and will be everywhere now. Jon hits home with Alina that if Jerry doesn’t follow the systems, they are fucked. Jerry says he will follow whatever Jon says, and Jon spends a lot of time telling Jerry he deserves this opportunity and tying it to his “American dream,” probably in hopes of inspiring Jerry. When he leaves the one-on-one, Jon has more confidence, but it comes with a lot of “ifs.” As much as I want to believe in Jerry, I just can’t.

As part of the rescue, Jon renames Gerri’s Sports Pub to Jerzy’s Pub, not only aiming to revitalize its image and draw in new patrons but to honor Jerry’s heritage as his Polish name is Jerzy. Jon says he’s trying to inspire Jerry to stay active and engaged in his bar.

A significant part of the transformation involves ridding the bar of it’s smoke smell and dingy interior. There’s a couple shout outs to Decorative Ceiling Tiles for doing the ceiling. There’s a new double TurboChef oven, new vinyl wraps, new furniture, new floor layout, new big-screen TVs, new plumbing, two workstations behind the bar, Skytab POS systems, a brand new ice machine, and, of course, a new name.

In the video below, we see Jerry tell us how happy he is about the new name.

After a slow start on the final night, everything comes together. In the end, when the bar is beautifully remodeled, all the equipment updated, and the staff and Jerry trained and working together, Jerry declares, “Lazy Jerry is fired.” He and Jon hug. One thing is for sure, Jon always follows through on his word. That’s part of what makes him so illustrious. Jerry, on the other hand? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Jerry does.

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I invite you to consider and share your answers in the Comments: Will Jerzy’s Pub thrive, or will old habits die hard?