In my most favorite episode of Bar Rescue ever, Jon heads to Nico’s Bar and Grill in Kingwood, Texas, to light a fire under the asses of owners Greg and Emmy Lee. Drowning in under $800,000 in debt, disconnected from their business, and failing to see how their complacency is hurting the staff who care deeply about them, Greg and Emmy must have forgotten how much Jon hates excuses. To top things off, Nico’s staff have learned through experience that they shouldn’t call on Greg and Emmy for anything after six o’clock in the evening, when the owners are drunk and, from the sounds of things, mean to their employees. Anyone who’s ever watched even one episode of Bar Rescue knows this isn’t going to fly well with Jon.

I’m an astute viewer, and I study the episodes, so I see how Jon has been changing his approach to be more, shall I say, “restrained,” probably to impact how we see him. I’m all for this for two reasons. The first is because I truly think it’s more of Jon’s first nature to be much kinder and compassionate than he appears on Bar Rescue, and, second, watching Jon try to be restrained again after all these years of learning to let go is in itself great TV, but, of course, that could just be me.

This season, Jon mentions in the beginning of the show that the plan is to help “worthy” owners. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to have a basic understanding of what Jon means by that—people who are somehow redeemable, who, at least on paper, look like they tried, not like, say, an entitled baseball player who doesn’t know anything about the bar and restaurant industry, owning a business, handling money, or taking responsibility for his life, who later on attempts to murder his in-laws with his new girlfriend’s help in order to get their life insurance money (IYKYK). I think it’s important to be fair here and say no one from Bar Rescue could have seen that coming, although, if memory serves, Jon didn’t like him one iota.

Now we have Greg and Emmy. Jon says it almost every episode, but this time it seems true: Greg and Emmy are good people caught in a bad place. I mean, I’m not going to cast any stones against people who are burnt out, especially people in the hospitality industry who depend on the desire and ability of humans to congregate. In the previous episode, the wife and co-owner needed to call Jon in to give her husband a kick in the ass, although, sadly, it was Phil Wills and Machete who actually did the kicking. This episode, we have a similar situation only both the husband and the wife need a good dose of Jon’s tough love—and they get it from Jon himself, even if he is being more restrained. Season One showed us just how tough Jon is without any theatrics, and he doesn’t disappoint now, thirteen years later, trying to roll back his approach to appear like the helpful guy he really is.

So, let’s get into it.

The episode begins like most all the others. We get a dismal snapshot of a bar on the brink. Nico’s Bar and Grill is a shadow of its former self—a place that had once been a vibrant local spot but has since become neglected and uninspired. Emmy had dreams of being hospitable, and when the couple put their all into it in the early days, the bar was successful. But then, over time and with Covid and other issues, like the state putting a divider in the middle of the main road outside their establishment, everything went south, and Greg and Emmy got used to making excuses for their problems.

The issues aren’t just from the property and remnants of Covid, either; they run deep into the leadership—or lack thereof. Greg and Emmy are checked out emotionally after 6 PM, leaving their staff to fend for themselves. They are in the business but not fully present, and what presence they do have sounds atrocious. Greg does shots at the bar while Emmy sips wine, and the employees operate without guidance, training, or hope. There is a lot of crying in this episode, although it isn’t the main focus by any means. It’s just part and parcel of the overall situation and how Jon finds his inroad to motivate change.

As per usual, Jon enters the scene like a whirlwind. This time, though, he is part of the recon team that includes mixology expert Nick Ortega and 13-time world pizza champion and master instructor at the International School of Pizza, Tony Gemingnani (Tony G). I don’t know what I was expecting or how much of what I got was from editing, but it was like watching a mother with four children try to accomplish a simple task. Jon was all over the place.

Jon and his team go in to “order some pizza and order some drinks.” Jon tells Nick and Tony G to grab a seat, that he’s going to go talk to Greg. Meanwhile, we hear someone in the bar who is mic’d up start panicking, “He’s here. He’s here.” I love this part of the show. I mean, I totally live for it. I feel like I’m sitting in a roller coaster waiting for it to reach the precipice for the first drop or like my team is in the Super Bowl and the game is just starting. So exciting!

Nick and Tony G look over the menu while Jon clarifies the situation with Greg and Emmy. Nick orders drinks for everyone, which is a riot in itself. He orders an old fashioned, margarita, Tom Collins, Long Island, and a godfather. Tony G orders a margherita pizza and a meatza pizza. They cut back and forth to Jon a little bit, and we hear him saying things like, “You moved here for your family?” Then he sounds a bit fatherly, “When things get tough, what do you do? You gotta dig in? You gotta work harder, right? You gotta find solutions.” Greg and Emmy are all “Yes. Yes. Right. Yes, sir.”

Then Jon drops a bomb on them with a good amount of passion, like a pissed off parent, “Why are you sitting on your ass taking shots?” He doesn’t quit there, although I had to pause to clean up the water I just spit out across my living room. “Is there any chance, ANY, that you’re going to save this bar sitting here on your ass drinking? Is there ANY CHANCE?” Greg looks embarrassed and chagrinned. Jon cuts in before Greg has a chance to drink away his feelings and tells Greg and Emmy if either of them has a drink while he’s in the building, he’ll leave. Then he goes, like an ordinary customer, to sit down with his friends to have a bite of pizza.

Jon’s friends have his back just like mine do. “Watch out for this table. It’s sticky.” Disgusting. Then Jon bellows out for Greg. Greg comes over like a good boy only to have Jon ream him for not walking around and checking the tables and barstools, inspecting the premises of his business.

Then, Jon jumps up and starts inspecting the premises himself. He just sat down and now he’s up again. Running around the dining room, checking tables and chairs, wildly gesticulating as he asks Greg, I mean, I think it was asking, but I’m not sure because it was so intense and commanding, “Do you see if there’s anything on the floor? Do you straighten a picture? Greg, do you do anything? ANYTHING?” I see why Jon wears sneakers.

I’m mesmerized and totally engaged. It takes Greg awhile to say, “Apparently not enough.” I’m surprised he says anything, to be honest.

There’s no real break in the conversation because Jon puts on his compassionate voice, the one full of disbelief, “You put your family’s money and future on the line, and this is what you did?” I didn’t notice it the first time, but upon rewatching, I see Tony G shaking his head “no” while Jon is talking, and then looking at Greg like he’s ashamed of him. I get a new laugh out of it, but it gets even funnier when Jon says, “We’re going to eat” like nothing out of the ordinary just happened and they all came in to get a table together for dinner. Greg says, “Okay,” and walks away with Tony G nonverbally admonishing him with a look that says, “You suck.”

Greg talks to the camera for a second and we see him take a deep breath to calm himself, and it gives me a half second to also breathe, but momentarily, that’s all going to change because Nick is looking at the bar and asks Jon about how the bartenders can reach stuff up in the soffit. Jon and Nick agree that the soffit is “destroying” the entire bar area. Jon looks pissed and tells Nick to go check out behind the bar. The closed captioning says “tense music,” and they got that right.

Jon doesn’t even turn his head to address Tony G when he says, “Guys, are they cooking that pizza back there, can you see?” and Tony G jumps right up to go see what’s happening in the kitchen. It’s like Jon has a sixth sense, though, because they are not cooking the pizza. The order hasn’t even reached the kitchen yet.

Nick is talking to the bartenders about what they are making and coaching them like they’ve had absolutely no training, which Jon reveals later some of them did have—on the cash register. Oops!

When Tony G goes into the kitchen to inquire about the pizza, we are introduced to George the cook. He’s being diligent back there, straightening up and cleaning because he doesn’t know he has an order. I don’t even know if he knows Jon is there. George talks to Tony G like he is just a curious customer wondering where his pizza is. If I had the time and editing skills, I’d mash a scene for you all where Tony G asks about the pizza, George asks what the name is under, and then Dalia from “S6E21: Dalia’s Inferno” would drunken yell, “Jon Taffer, J-O-N-T-A-F-F-E-R.” Alas, you’ll just have to imagine it. If you are unfamiliar with Dalia’s episode, it’s a classic, and I encourage you to watch and judge it for yourself. If you like Bar Rescue, the Dalia episode is a necessity for your collection.

The next few scenes inside Nico’s are of the experts going back and forth asking questions of the staff that are really not questions at all, but criticisms. You keep the simple syrup in a water pitcher? This is frozen dough? No help from the owner? Is that pre-cooked sausage? [Tense music] That should be rum, vodka, triple sec, gin, right? I mean, the questions don’t stop, and Jon looks completely disappointed and beleaguered, but the next we see, Jon has joined the action and is up from the table talking to Stephanie the bartender, “Who taught you how to tend bar? Did anybody train you here?” I mentioned before that I thought Jon’s alternate career should be as a police detective and this is why. “If I asked you both to make a margarita, would it be the same drink?” The questions are relentless. And the answers are adding up in Jon’s head to the reality that Greg and Emmy do not manage anything anymore. Their business isn’t failing; they are.

Jon admonishes Greg, pointing out that the bartenders are embarrassed because Greg didn’t train them and now they’ve been put on the spot. Jon takes a big sigh of disbelief and then heads over to the sticky table to try the pizza and his drink.

It takes half a second, though, for him to take a good look at the chair he’s about to sit on, pick it up, and show it to the entire bar and ask, “Who wants to sit on this stool?”

Then he question-lectures Greg by pretending to talk to the whole bar about whether or not they’d leave that stool out or if they’d get one of the nicer ones over there and throw the ratty one out. We see Greg just sitting at the bar taking his verbal beating. Greg is so demoralized, he doesn’t even try to fight back. At this point, Jon knows what the issue is and is probably just trying to gauge how bad it is by seeing if he can get any fight out of Greg. Jon likes to make owners angry, so they get some passion in them and want to improve. Greg’s not having it, so we know he’s in a bad, bad spot.

Jon knows this, too, so he ratches it up a couple hundred notches to see if that impacts Greg. He yells, “You see, when you’re sitting on your ass over there, you don’t see this, do you?” as he lifts the stool up and chucks it across the dining room. Tony G and Nick just sit there and watch the show. “In front row seats,” I think with envy. I wonder how much coaching new experts or the radio recon people get that this kind of thing might happen, and they should just be chill about it? Tony G seems to be enjoying himself and is fun to watch.

Then the drinks arrive. Again Jon talks like he’s a regular customer. Nick critiques the drinks for us, but we already know they are going to be awful from the previous ten minutes of the show. Jon is once again looking pissed off. I wonder if he’s hangry. He sure seems it. His next question is “Where’s the pizza?”

I knew it! He is hangry!

I’m serious. I watch these episodes several times, and then I watch them scene by scene to write about them. This episode is hilarious. I laugh so hard and then have to compose myself to write, and then I laugh writing about it. The pizza arrives at the table, and everyone knows it’s terrible, but they start critiquing it. The sausage is so overcooked it’s flavorless. The dough is flavorless and terrible because it’s frozen. The sauce is made from a combination of pizza sauce and salsa, which makes me want to vomit. Jon digs in and you can see it’s still steaming hot. Then the unbelievable happens: Emmy comes to the table and asks proudly, “So what do you think?”

Jon, wipes his mouth and calls Greg over. He says a truism of every episode but especially this one: “I’m not messing around.” He introduces Tony G, explains his credentials, and then asks for Tony’s evaluation. Tony says the pizza is terrible and likens it to dog food.

Jon tells Greg and Emmy he’s not happy with what he sees. If they don’t change their products and their procedures, they are going to fail. However, what’s really bothering Jon is that the employees think Greg and Emmy are drunken fools. Jon points this out to Greg and Emmy and asks them if they think the employees are going to work hard for them and fight for their business when Greg and Emmy don’t care? Of course, they answer no, but Jon isn’t finished. He tells them they better think about that and walks out with, “Let’s get out of here, guys. This place sucks.” He does a mic drop with his pizzeria napkin, and we see them all leave Nico’s.

Greg tells us he got a wake-up call. All I can say is that he better have because tomorrow is the staff meeting, and we know what happens in the staff meeting if the owners don’t take accountability, don’t we DJ? (IYKYK).

When Jon walks in for the staff meeting, the staff seems excited to see him, say hi and sound enthusiastic. Jon reminds everyone he’s only there for four days, which implores them to be honest now because there are no second chances for that coming down the pike. Jon starts with Stephanie the bartender, asking why they are failing. She says they are overworked and have too many responsibilities so they can’t do anything right. Jon paraphrases back and then moves on to George the cook. George says he has a military background and there’s no organization, no management, no accountability. Jon likes hearing that, probably because that was also his assessment. Then Jon asks Greg what the three most important things to running a successful restaurant are. Greg tells him, “Great service, great product, and you gotta have something to get people in the door.”

Jon adds consistency. Then he tells Greg that he’s bothered by the fact that Greg is smart and knows all this and yet he did nothing about it. He tells Greg he’s worried. Then comes one of the most poignant moments of the episode. Jon asks about why no one can talk to Greg and Emmy after 6 PM. Stephanie is the one who explains that Greg and Emmy get stressed out and lose their composure. She’s intimated and scared at work. She begins to cry, and Jon asks her to tell everyone what is going on so Greg and Emmy can hear it. They need to know what their employees are feeling if they are going to manage them successfully.

Stephanie tearfully admits her love for Greg and Emmy despite their flaws and how intimidated she feels. “I remember when things were different,” she says, her voice cracking with emotion. Her frustration and sorrow are palpable—not just for the state of the bar but for the state of the people she admires and loves. Jon seizes on this vulnerability, using it as a mirror for Greg and Emmy. “You’re hurting them,” Jon tells the couple. “You get that? You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who wants to hurt them.” Greg says no, he isn’t that kind of guy. Now Jon has Greg realizing he has a greater responsibility than just to himself; he has one toward his employees.

With Greg and the employees under his influence, Jon now goes to Emmy. He prefaces the conversation like he’s been doing more this season, “I have one question for you, and this is a big one: Why did you enable his failure?” Cue tense music. “You sit at that bar with him. You’re the enabler of his failure. Why?”

Emmy tells Jon, “I’m just burnt out.” Jon doesn’t understand. He tells her he doesn’t get it. She sits there next to Greg and instead of telling him to go do something and also doing something herself, she just enables their failure. He then does something he rarely does. He talks about his own relationship. He says, “My wife would be looking at me, saying, ‘Jon, get your shit together.’ Right? ‘Get off your butt. Go to work.’ Right? You didn’t do that.”

Then he tells Greg that Greg is doing the same thing to Emmy. “You’ve got to be instruments of each other’s success, not fuel for each other’s failure.”

This approach to marital relationships is why Jon hosted Marriage Rescue–not too many people talk about relationships as loving connections where the people support one another for growth and success, but Jon does. Jon’s ability to pinpoint the core issues in a relationship is one of his greatest strengths. In two days he’s reframed their dynamic from one of mutual complacency to one of mutual potential. He is so illustrious.

Greg tells the camera, he’s been awakened. He’s now thinking of ways to improve and recognizes his role in making the place a success.

Once again, Jon inspires accountability and motivation in the owners of the bar he’s rescuing. A big part of his success with people is because he doesn’t just tell them what’s wrong—which he surely did in this episode—but he also shows them how to make it right. For Greg and Emmy, that means becoming partners in success rather than enablers of dysfunction. For the staff and the owners, it means days of training with Tony G and Nick.

While the front of the house is in shambles, the kitchen offers a glimmer of hope in the form of George, the cook. His passion for his pizza-making craft is exciting to see. He reminds me of a more tender Ashley Clark, who Jon plucked out of “S5E11: Ice, Mice, Baby” and helped mold into an expert mixologist who appeared in a couple of later episodes. Working with Tony G is a dream come true for George, whose awe and gratitude are infectious. Watching him learn from Tony G is one of the highlights of the episode—a reminder of why Bar Rescue resonates so deeply and what Jon always says in interviews and the show: It’s not just about saving businesses; it’s about transforming lives.

The stress test, as expected, has major problems. George loves making pizza but he’s being retrained so it’s like starting fresh. The bartenders start off good, but their skills and confidence slowly fades, and the POS system malfunctions. This is neither the worst nor the best stress test I’ve seen.

Amidst the disarray, there are glimmers of progress. Greg steps into a leadership role. He manages the flow, communicates with the team, and shows a spark of the owner he could be, or perhaps, used to be. Emmy, too, is more engaged, and the staff works tirelessly despite the broken POS system and all the issues they have.

Jon’s post-stress-test analysis is blunt but fair: The bar’s systems are failing the team. From the outdated soffit that obstructs sightlines to the inefficient bar setup, the physical space is working against them. But Jon also sees the potential, pointing out how everyone tried. He must be impressed because he tells the crowd he wants to thank the staff. Say what?? This is a rare situation, indeed, where Jon throws in the towel but also thanks the staff for their work. He must believe that everyone is really trying and that Greg and Emmy have had their accountability reconciliation because he would otherwise still be pointing out their weaknesses publicly, so this is a big difference.

It seems to me that Jon sees a lot of potential in this bar, so, I do, too. So much so, that I checked the update on Reality TV Updates, and they report Kingwood Neapolitan Kitchen and Bar, formerly Nico’s Bar and Grill, is still open.

When it is time for the big reveal, Nico’s is unrecognizable. The outdated soffit is gone, replaced by an open, inviting space that is upscale and modern, just like Emmy dreamed. Poor Laura Rhoades, though, Jon’s production designer. The look on her face when he told her he wanted to remove the soffit is priceless. She even tells Jon she is speechless. Over the years, Jon has had some big asks from her and other construction team members, like replacing Rockin’ Rhonda’s entire floor in “S5E28: Rickety Rockin’ Rhonda’s” because it was unsafe from hurricane damage and flooding. I want to give Laura a well-deserved shout out for the way she handled Jon’s request. Jon is the host, but the people behind the scenes are also amazing; we just don’t often get to see them.

Kingwood Neapolitan Kitchen and Bar is a model of efficiency, with new tools, POS systems, and a fancy cocktail menu with signature drinks. Emmy gets her upscale place–complete with upscale food, like truffle pizza, and upscale cocktails, like a Blood Orange Mule. The most striking transformation, though, isn’t the décor or the menu—it is Greg and Emmy. For the first time, they look hopeful, engaged, and ready to lead. Jon’s final words to them are a wise and loving directive: “Push each other to do better for each other.”

What makes Jon so illustrious isn’t just his ability to fix failing bars—it’s his knack for inspiring people to be their best selves. In this episode, he reminds Greg that he is smart to help reignite his confidence. He shows Emmy that her burnout doesn’t have to define her, that she can find her spark again if she chooses to. He empowers their staff to take pride in their work, proving that even in the most downtrodden circumstances, there’s room for growth and excellence. Jon reminds us that success isn’t just about having the right tools—it’s about having the right mindset. He reminds us that, sometimes, all it takes to turn things around is someone who sees what’s possible and pushes us to reach it.

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I invite you to consider and share your answers in the Comments: If you own a business, would you want Jon to be a secret shopper for you? What do you think his honest assessment would be?