For the first time in Bar Rescue history, Jon Taffer helps a cigar bar. He goes to Memphis, Tennessee to check out the Havana Mix Cigar Emporium. It’s a bar with an impressive walk-in humidor where more than 50,000 cigars are available for smoking and buying. The owner, Robb Hunter, hired his millennial son Robb, Jr. to run the place. But Taffer doesn’t like what he sees. He sees Robb Jr. “hiding” in the humidor. In one scene, Jr. spends 10 minutes talking to a customer who ends up buying a $11 cigar. Meanwhile, a group of patrons at the bar are thirsty. Taffer estimates $120 drinks worth. Taffer accuses Jr. of “leaving money (his father’s money) on the table.” Don’t worry, Taffer stays around and transforms the place into Robusto by Havana Mix.
This isn’t the only cigar bar Hunter owns. He has another place in Memphis called the Burning Desire Cigar Emporium, and a third location in Southaven, Mississippi called Cigar Haven. At the 2017 Beale Street Cigar Festival (which Hunter puts on), former NBA star Dominique Wilkins aka “The Human Highlight Film” showed up and mentioned that he and Hunter are partners in a new place in Atlanta (see video below). Wilkins says Hunter has “educated me about finer cigars.” New episodes of Bar Rescue air Sundays at 10pm on Paramount Network.
