In my most favorite episode of Bar Rescue ever, Jon kicks off a new season after the winter hiatus by continuing his softer, more redemptive approach—helping owners who may be clueless but are ultimately worthy of saving. This time, we meet Jimmy Pruett, a genuinely good guy who inherited his family’s bar, Interlude II, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and somehow thought it would just run itself.

For 60 years, Jimmy’s family kept the bar going, starting when his father won it in a poker game, which might make you think it was going to be a classic “this bar was doomed from the start” story. However, both Jimmy’s father and mother loved the bar and ran it well. When Jimmy’s mother took over, she made Jimmy promise never to sell it, and ever since, he’s clung to it, despite not knowing the first thing about actually running a bar. And for a while, that worked. The bar ran itself. Until it didn’t. Now, Jimmy is $60,000 in debt, and Interlude II is just a relic with no identity, no marketing, and a clientele as outdated as the sign that doesn’t even light up.

On the positive side, Jon didn’t complain about cross contamination because all they had was a residental toaster oven to bake a frozen pizza in. Jon didn’t complain about the red gunk that is cockroach feces and dead fruit flies either, because Jimmy didn’t have a soda gun. They didn’t have unclean beer glasses either because there were no glasses, just cans, and no beer on tap. Oh, Jimmy, even I sigh.

Jon walks into Interlude II and immediately diagnoses Jimmy’s fatal flaw: He’s running the bar like it’s still 1993. There’s no food, no draft beer, no signature drinks, and the bartenders are free-pouring disasters. Instead of training his staff or modernizing anything, Jimmy sits at the bar drinking a soda straight from the can—setting the perfect example of effortlessness and class. The bar doesn’t attract women or young people and never will at this rate.

So Jon, being Jon, doesn’t waste time easing Jimmy into reality. “Jimmy, the decisions you’re making are killing you. And you’re a good guy, but your head’s up your ass ‘cause you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. And after 25 years, you should.” Jon, as usual, has a point.

But then Jon goes even deeper, wielding a far crueler and more devastating weapon than any insult ever could: Parental shame. Jon turns to the sky and asks Jimmy’s long-gone father if he likes what he sees. And just like that, the weight of the family legacy crashes down on Jimmy’s shoulders.

“What do you think, Dad? Is he doing a good job? Is he protecting the legacy? What would he say?”

Jimmy, who has one of the biggest and most gregarious smiles I’ve ever seen, looks genuinely shaken. You can see his eyes are teary and he gets a bit quieter, barely managing a choked-out “No.” If it were me, I’d take Jon calling me a loser anyday over having him summon my dead relatives to weigh in on my failures.

But Jon quickly sees that they are all very receptive to his guidance and he has given Jimmy a reason to build himself back up. Jon takes a turn and gets their commitment to fixing it all then heads out the door to begin work tomorrow.

Jon starts the next day with a staff meeting. Jimmy knows his bar is in terrible shape. He just has no idea where to start. His fiancée, Nikki, is equally eager to fix things, but her undefined role at the bar—sometimes hiring, sometimes stepping behind the bar, sometimes doing nothing at all—creates some chaos. She is hesitant to claim the title manager. When Jimmy asks if she is, he says, “I guess.” Two of the bartenders don’t think so, but the one that Nikki hired does. This is a big problem.

Jon’s solution (because if you know Bar Rescue or anything about Jon, you should know he embraces solutions) is structure. He tells Jimmy to officially designate Nikki as manager and pick a head bartender so someone in the bar knows what’s going on. Meanwhile, he makes his usual case for a food program and draft beer, explaining (again) that when people eat at a bar, they stay 52 minutes longer and spend more money on beverages as well as tip more. I had to laugh because when Jon said they tip more, one of the bartenders yelled “Yeah!”

Jimmy, of course, hadn’t thought of this because, as he admits, he doesn’t drink and never really learned anything about the industry. This whole time, he’s been winging it with no systems, no training, and no understanding of why things aren’t working. You don’t have to be a drinker to know that. As a matter of fact, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching Bar Rescue, it’s that not being a drinker is a great thing for a bar owner. You should, however, be a businessperson and treat your bar like a business that you are in charge of. Jimmy didn’t do that either.

Then we get to see what might be one of Jon’s favorite parts about Bar Rescue because it’s unarguably bar science at its best: The Partender Reveal.

Jon reveals that in just a few days, the bar poured $6,300 worth of liquor but only brought in $4,700 in sales. In one week, Jimmy lost $1,600 in booze. Jon makes Nikki do the math, “How much in a month?”

She tells everyone, “$6,450.”

“How much in a year?”

Oh boy. It’s “$77,500.” And suddenly, Jimmy realizes he’s been losing more than his total debt in just over-pouring alone. Forget new customers—if his bartenders just stopped giving drinks away, he wouldn’t even need to be rescued.

This is the moment where Bar Rescue makes its best case for why failing bars are never just about bad luck. Jimmy hasn’t been struggling because of the economy, competition, or any external force. He’s been bleeding out from problems entirely within his control—he just didn’t know it.

Lucky for him, Jon does. Jon knows it isn’t theft either, so that’s good news for the bar and the camaraderie everyone has, but it kind of sucks for us viewers because there’s just nothing much to make Jon lose it and that’s part of the fun of watching Bar Rescue for many fans. However, it’s also a good sign because it shows that Jon only goes off when he has a legitimate reason.

Jon does something this episode that I don’t remember him doing for a while. He takes Jimmy on a field trip. They go to the Rustic Road Brewing Company, not far from the Interlude II, so Jon can help Jimmy see value in offering draft beer. Chuck Nelson, the owner of Rustic Road Brewing Company, tells them about how draft beer is part of their concept as a small batch, craft beer brewery. It’s daytime, and they have a happy hour going where you get three free wings with a draft. Jon mentions having some sort of cross promotion between the two bars, and, as he often does, Jon puts two small business folks together to help each other out.

Next up is training and then the stress test. Alli Torres is the mixologist who trains the staff to make a godfather. Chef Jennifer Murphy has the staff learn the quickest menu she thinks she’s ever developed. Even with all the ease, the stress test reveals exactly how bad service is. There’s a 23-minute wait time for drinks when the goal is the industry standard of 12 minutes, so, basically, double the failure. It isn’t the worst we’ve seen, but it’s not good either. The staff however, have heart, and that makes everyone happy, including Jon.

And since we are on the topic of Jon doing things I haven’t seen in a while, let’s talk about Jon doing something I’ve never seen him do before—magic tricks at the bar. Yep. Jon appears to tear a piece out of a dollar bill, then has a patron blow on it, and viola! It’s whole again. That was not on my 2025 Bingo card (nor my Bar Rescue Bingo card) let me tell you.

Jon is a multidimensional human being and he is known for being his authentic self, so this actually reinforces those aspects about him. He has a grandson, too, who probably loves to see Jon do magic. I mean, I went to Vegas once, and I did all kinds of things there, but my favorite thing of all was happening across a $20 magic show at a hotel in the middle of the day. I sat in the front row and was like a fascinated eight-year-old oohing and ahhhing and just really being amazed to see the magician make someone disappear 10 feet in front of me. So, if Jon wanted to put on a magic show for me while I waited 23 minutes for my drink in some dive bar in Kenosha, Wisconsin, you bet I’d love it! Besides, he’s made racoons disappear before on the show in Kansas City (IYKYK), so why not?

After the magic show success and the stress test fail, Jon and his team go to work, training and fixing all the remaining problems and remodeling the bar. Jon doesn’t just slap a modern theme onto Interlude II and call it a day. He understands the emotional weight of this bar. Jimmy’s mother’s dying wish was for Jimmy to keep it, and for Jimmy, the bar isn’t just a business—it’s his entire identity. So instead of rebranding it into something unrecognizable, Jon elevates it, blending the old with the new.

The sign still honors the Interlude name, now proudly displaying “Since 1963.” One of my favorite choices Jon makes this episode is to keep the original back bar. It’s quite lovely and has a mid-century modern look to it. Jon is able to renovate around it and modernize the bar without erasing its history. And as soon as Jimmy sees it, he does what only the most grateful, fully transformed owners do: He hugs Jon. I mean, he goes up to Jon and hugs him, not the other way around. That’s true gratefulness.

Jon provided all the needed bar stuff like glasses and tools, a Manitowac ice machine, stools and rockless tables, vinyl wraps, ceiling tiles (which I personally love), new lighting, Skytab POS systems and a handheld one, and for Interlude II specifically, two bar stations with soda guns, fixing the taps and getting free beer from their neighbors at Rustic Road Brewing Company. Jon also paints the outside a nice dark blue.

Jimmy, once aimless, finally owns his role. He tells his staff that Nikki is now the manager and that everyone is going to stick to the new systems. His tears of failure from earlier have turned into tears of appreciation. And Nikki, who was lost in the shuffle before, sees how Jon truly understands them—who they are, what they need, and how to set them up for a future they didn’t even know they could have.

It’s been about two months without seeing a fresh Bar Rescue and I’m glad to see Jon back doing what Jon does best. At the start, he used Jimmy’s love for his parents as a vulnerability—a way to break down Jimmy’s resistance and make him see that he had to change. But by the end, Jon honors that same love, using it to build Jimmy up instead of just tearing him down.

And that’s why Jon doesn’t just rescue businesses—he rescues the people running them, which, of course, is why he’s so damn illustrious. Ahhh, welcome back, Jon!