On tonight’s episode of Bar Rescue, Jon Taffer and his team are back in action in Highland, California to rescue JJ’s Sports Bar & Grill.
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JJ’s Sports Bar & Grill has been owned by former bodyguard Joe Swidan and his wife Jackie since 2017, when the pair put down $350,000 of their life savings to buy the bar. Everything at the bar was going great until 2020, when the the pandemic hit, forcing JJ’s to close its doors. When the bar reopened – like many other bars in the same situation – it struggled to regain its previous success. To make matters worse, Joe turned to the bottle, and his belligerent drinking behavior put him at odds with his entire bar staff, his wife and two sons.
As a result, JJ’s is reportedly losing up to $30,000 a month, leaving Joe and Jackie in debt to the tune of 175,000 and just two months away from closing the doors for the last time.
During the rescue, which happened back in the fall of 2022, Taffer decided to change the name of JJ’s Sports Bar & Grill to JJ’s Sports Cafe. Despite the name change, the owners still mostly promote the bar under the original name.
A Closer Look
- JJ’s is active on Facebook and Instagram.
- You can check out post-rescue reviews of JJ’s via Google Reviews and Yelp.
- The owners appear to have operated as least one or two other JJ’s locations in California, including one in San Diego that was listed for sale back in September 2022 for $525,000. Here’s the Facebook page for that location.
- As part of the rescue, Taffer drafted WWE wrestlers Mercedes Mone and Trinity Fatu to do recon for the episode.
Google Street View of JJ’s Sports Bar & Grill
Image via YouTube/Screengrab