Jon Taffer

Jon Taffer is best known for his reality television series, Bar Rescue, which follows the successful entrepreneur as he revitalizes failing bars and nightclubs across the United States with a brusque, nononsense, and confrontational attitude intended to goad the owners and staff into making drastic changes. The eighth season focuses on Las Vegas, Taffer’s residence and a city whose hospitality industry was decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bars featured on the show are already in dire financial and operational change to situations by the time Taffer intervenes. Yet, data shows that more than half of the bars featured have remained open.

Due to the on-going labor shortage in the U.S., Taffer has been actively exploring ways to use innovative kitchen technology so that 60% fewer employees are needed in the kitchen, while still offering higher food quality and higher consistency. Residential Tech Today recently chatted with Taffer about his career, management style, and experiences with kitchen tech. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Residential Tech Today: Did you have a feeling in the beginning about how popular Bar Rescue would be?

JT: That’s a great question. I haven’t been asked that question. No, honestly, I thought I’d do a pilot and go home. That’s the absolute truth, and I never expected this. What was most important to me was creating an honest show. I really thought a lot of reality TV wasn’t very real, and I wanted to do something that was real. We always tried to create a dramatic show, but a show that had some intelligence to it. That’s how it all started.

RT Today: Your show appeals to such a wide demographic; what’s your recipe for success?

JT: You know, I think the show is about humanity. It’s very Shakespearian. The First Act is a person in trouble. Second Act, they resist change. Third Act, they start to transform themselves. Fourth Act, they redeem themselves. Fifth Act, happy ending. We can all relate to people struggling. We can all feel good about people redeeming themselves and accomplishing something and digging themselves out. I think that is what Bar Rescue is. I think it’s a story of people who are in trouble, who, whether through my guidance or through their own spirit, pull themselves out and succeed. I think that’s a story that’s appealing to us all. I happen to do it in bars. I thought I was doing a bar show. Now, 10 years and 200 episodes later, I’m telling the story of people who are in crisis, and how do we get them out of it? And that’s why I think it’s successful, because it does have that depth to it.

Due to the ongoing labor shortage in the U.S., Bar Rescue’s Jon Taffer has been actively exploring ways to use innovative kitchen technology in his new Taffer’s Tavern restaurants.

RT Today: I think people watch it from the comfort of their couch, but they see a little bit of themselves, and think maybe they could do more with their business or their life, and they feel an emotional connection.

JT: Well, let me give you an example. In the past three weeks or so I received an email from an officer in the Royal Air Force telling me how they employed my tactics in their training. I’ve received emails from teachers telling me how they use self-accountability in the classroom. I receive emails from marketing professors, doctors… I can’t tell you how many professions I received emails from with people saying that the principles that we teach really apply to their businesses. I think it’s that relatability. Even somebody who’s not a bartender relates to the struggle. Also, very often, there’s a mom and a dad involved… their kid’s involved… a partner’s involved. It makes the show relatable to

everyone.

Photo: Eric Jamison/Studio J Inc

RT Today: That’s a really good point. A lot of times restaurants are family businesses, aren’t they? And working with family isn’t always easy, is it?

JT: Not at all. By the way, 70% of the million restaurants across the country are owned by single-unit owners, which means, you’re exactly right; they’re mom-and-pop businesses.

RT Today: COVID-19 has clearly been a huge challenge for bars and restaurants. They really had to pivot during the pandemic, didn’t they?

JT: Well, we had no choice. We use the words “market disruption,” but market non-function was what it was. It changed our whole revenue model. While Amazon has changed the

El K’Rajo, profiled in 2018 on Bar Rescue: Operation Puerto Rico, shown after renovations.

Photo José Rodrigo Madera for Paramount Networks

distribution model for so many products from the retail space to online, this changed the distribution model for restaurants to “delivery,” “to go,” and “curbside pickup.” It seems like a change that would have happened over time anyway, but the pandemic forced it.

RT Today: Technology has always played a big role in food and beverage. How has the pandemic pushed it further along?

JT: Technology, even in the home today, when you look at home sanitation, it’s air scrubbers, right? It’s different floor scrubbers. It’s different HVAC systems and filters. It’s all sorts of technologies now that make our home safer and make our schools safer. It’s an interesting time, because I’ve never seen technology so attached to day-to-day safety like it is now. Even companies like Big Ass Fans now have ultraviolet scrubbers in them. Nobody ever thought of that until [COVID-19]. So that’s really, really exciting.

RT Today: Going back to your leadership style, some might say you’re a little “in your face,” but I think viewers really enjoy it because you get to the point. Is that a leadership style something that others can emulate?

JT: I think it has to be authentic. I’m not sure one can be trained to inspire. I think that the way people need to lead, if they are inherent leaders, is what is authentic to them. On Bar Rescue, I do about a 60-day project in three and a half days. I’m under unbelievable pressure every minute that I’m there. These people’s lives are on the line. They’re counting on me. I’m their last chance. They’re losing their house. Their kids are at home that don’t have any money for school. I mean, it’s a nightmare what I walk into, and I have three and a half days to fix it. So, you bet I’m under the gun. You bet I’m aggressive. I have to be. There’s this clock ticking in my head every second.

Big Mike’s in Denham Springs, Louisiana was profiled during season 5, in the episode entitled ”Bar Over Troubled Water.“

RT Today: So, tell us about Taffer’s Tavern. How are you using technology to make these restaurants more efficient?

JT: The first location is in Alpharetta, GA, and we’re also building in DC and Boston and working on sites in Tampa and several other markets. We’re in major growth mode. Taffer’s Tavern was created back when we were dealing with similar challenges to what we’re facing today, but due to different circumstances. We couldn’t find restaurant employees two and a half years ago. Unemployment was so low that restaurant employees couldn’t be found. We had a real crisis, and I’m was going to my friends’ restaurants – the casual dining sector – and none of them could staff their kitchens. So, I said to myself, could I create a restaurant using technology, robotic cooking, computerized cooking, combi ovens. Could I create a restaurant that has 60% less employees in the kitchen with higher food quality and higher consistency? If I could do that, then that would completely change the economic model of restaurants. I went to work in test kitchens for about a year and a half, working with sous vide food products, working with combi ovens, special cooking techniques, water ovens, and all sorts of technologies, getting all of the menu items and cooking techniques perfected. I partnered with a company called Middleby, who

Photo courtesy of PARAMOUNT NETWORK

produces the Brava oven, which is a home version of a TurboChef, Frymaster, and a bunch of other great technologies. Then I partnered with a company called Cuisine Solutions, who’s the world’s expert at sous vide, the vacuum cooking bag cooking technique. Working with Cuisine Solutions and Middleby, I was able to put both technologies in the same room with me and completely redesign a kitchen. Our kitchen doesn’t have a traditional stove or oven, so it doesn’t need an exhaust hood! What we will do is take a very high-end piece of steak, supplied by a particular ranch in a particular style, so it is very high quality. We’ll put that steak in a special plastic bag, we’ll vacuum seal it with no air, and then we’ll put it in the circulating water oven at 135 degrees. The water brings the meat up to 135 degrees, which is perfect – medium rare. When that perfectly cooked steak is ordered at the restaurant, it comes out of the water and goes into a special combi oven that uses four percent microwave to warm the center and infrared light technologies to char the outside. Four minutes later, it’s the best steak you’ve ever tasted. So, then we said, okay, can we do this with fish? Can we do this with other proteins?

RT Today: That really does sound like the kitchen of the future.

JT: It is. We developed our menu, and we’re really, really proud of the food quality that we’ve attained. We can have a 220-seat restaurant packed on a Saturday night with two people in the kitchen. I’ve heard of six-minute ticket times, seven-minutes ticket times, where other restaurants for those 220 customers have seven people in the kitchen, and they’re running 20-minute ticket times. We have twice the table turn at half the labor costs with a far higher level of quality, all by leveraging technology.

Jon Taffer’s brusque, no-nonsense, and confrontational attitude often helps goad the owners and staff of struggling businesses into making drastic changes to the way their bar is run.

RT Today: For the properties you’ve worked with, how important are entertainment systems like karaoke, music, or TVs?

JT: There are thousands of people in Silicon Valley, in the technical world, trying to take business away from every brick-and-mortar company. So, as an industry, we have to understand, whether you’re selling widgets or hamburgers, that the four walls of your business better darn well provide a reason for people to come to it. What’s on my video system? Can I create a reaction? Can I create a smile? Can I create relevancy for the consumer through my environment? So, when they come there, they feel that there’s a reason why they come there. If you don’t feel those things, you have no reason to come. Then, you’ll click it rather than buy it in person. I look at things like Atmosphere TV, which is a free service with 40 or 50 different channels. They have all of this video content that you can target to the demographic of your business. Music, too. You don’t go to a place that plays corny music. Music defines who we are. When you look at things like Atmosphere TV, music programs, the way staff behaves, the kind of interaction that’s caused by staff, we must get people to react to us. My first book “Raising the Bar” is all about the science of reaction management. The premise is: I don’t sell food. I sell reactions. I achieve it through food because when that food hits the table, you either sit up or you don’t. If you don’t do it right, then “quick” wins. When “quick” wins, then either the revenues go away from you altogether or you have a new partner – the guy who’s delivering your product through the click, and your profits are done. Either way, we have to beat the click. And the way to beat the click is through the four walls of the business and providing relevancy. x

DASHBOARD

SAVANT. SMART LIVING.

USER EXPERIENCE

The Savant smart home offers personalization and simple control of entertainment, lighting, climate, security and energy - creating a home in tune with your client’s lifestyle. ENERGY

Savant Power offers a scalable platform to track and manage energy production and consumption. Energy management features allow for flexible load management, time-of-use mitigation and more. LIGHTING

Savant and GE Lighting, a Savant company, provide end-to-end lighting solutions for every home and budget, all controlled from Savant’s best-in-class user interface. ENTERTAINMENT

Savant entertainment technology offers instant access to streaming music throughout the home, an immersive home theater experience, and unparalleled whole-home video distribution.