In this Bar Rescue episode, Jon Taffer visits The Recovery Room Bar in San Antonio, Texas.
The Recovery Room Bar is owned by Heather Stich.
She bought the bar in 2013 with her life savings of over $150,000
When she first owned the bar it started great and was successful.
She focused too much on the party scene and her antics chased customers away.
Her staff do not respect her and say she is the main problem of the bar.
Her husband Howard has had to step in to remedy the situation but he has been ineffective.
He pays for their month to month expenses to keep the business afloat and their marriage is on the rocks.
Jon recons the bar with Jim and Max who have a podcast on bar rescue episode reviews.
The exterior is so dark and the sign is barely visible.
Inside the bar is dirty and walls are green with an empty unused room.
They see Heather and Howard and Jon fills them in on the ownership dynamics.
Dee, Victoria and Devon are bartenders.
Heather has drinks with her girlfriends but Howard is unhappy and sober at the bar trying to get her to pay.
She gives out twenty shots at once to the whole bar.
Jon comes in and addresses their situation asking Howard why he pays for Heather to drink and give out drinks at the bar.
Jon has Heather get behind the bar and make fifteen margaritas.
She makes several mistakes and says that she is not drunk.
She pours the ingredients into the glasses instead of shaking the drink to mix.
When she is told about the error she refuses to continue.
Jon is tired of her disrespecting her husband and leaves.
Heather is upset with Howard for not defending her.
Jon comes in the next day and he joins the staff meeting and Heather is sober.
Jon shows them the Bevinco report and they gave away $984 over the weekend.
Heather is disbelieving of the numbers and Jon has footage of her drunk, drinking and being belligerent at the bar.
Howard has been writing checks for her but is not officially an owner of the bar and that gets Jon the most upset.
Jon leaves them to sort it out between themselves.
Heather agrees to give him 50% for all the support he has given, making him a partner in her business.
Jon is happy with the resolution and Jon introduces expert bartender Phil Wills to train the staff.
He trains them on whiskey-based cocktails featuring Crown Royale Whiskey which is popular in the area.
For the stress test Jon gets to finally see how they work and expose their weaknesses.
The bartenders are trying their best but make mistakes and Heather is putting in some effort into managing.
All the bartenders crowd around one work station.
Heather is asked to help with some tickets but she does not remember how it is made.
Drinks have been served but no one has paid yet.
The bar is shut down.
The next day, training continues and when Phil asks how the night went.
Heather is in denial saying the night went well even when it did not.
Phil corrects her and points out the need to get better on techniques while training them on a new cocktail.
Jon sits down with the couple later and reminds Heather to be the catalyst of the customers party not her own party.
They both agree that they need to give each other support in the business.
Howard is more confident he can do so with his stake in it.
After more than 24 hours renovating the bar Jon gathers the staff at night to reveal the new bar.
The bar has been renamed to The Baseline with call-to-action beer, cocktails and pool.
Inside the bar is brighter with colourful backlights.
Crown Royal has sponsored a Wall of Gratitude for local heroes.
There will be a bag programme where people can put notes and candy in a bag that will be shipped to troops.
Arctic Concepts put in a new beer draft system and there are two work stations.
There is a new Dalia Italia pizza oven and three Harbour touch POS systems.
They also have a lifetime subscription to Bevinco for inventory.
They love all the changes and additions.
They soon let all the customers in for the relaunch.
On relaunch, the bar starts great with Heather making drinks correctly at the bar and fifteen cocktails are made in 4 minutes.
The customers love the fact there is now pizza.
Howard introduces the troop care packages and most of customers get involved.
What Happened Next at The Recovery Room Bar / The Baseline?
Six weeks later the sales are up 20%.
Heather is doing better.
Howard has not had to write a check that month.
They have decided to keep the new name from the episode.
The Baseline is open.
Reviews are mostly positive with customers loving the atmosphere and drinks prices.
Click for more Bar Rescues
Previous episode - UNLV College of Hospitality
Next episode - Kiva Lounge and Bar
This post was last updated in March 2022.
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