On the Bar Rescue episode “Pie Hard,” Jon Taffer travels to Laredo, Florida to check out Gil & Rick’s, a failing pizza bar in a strip mall. Taffer brings the producers of the blog Barstool Sports with him, Frankie Borrelli and Dave Portney. (They’re also the creators of One Bite, an app for pizza lovers to discover and review the best places to order a slice.)
Taffer sends Frankie into the 2000 square-foot sports bar including a 1000-sq. ft. pizza kitchen with only one working oven. Taffer tells Frankie to order one of every pie on the menu – that’s 11 pies. The cook isn’t happy about the order. Or as Taffer says, “This is a guy who’s pissed off that he actually has to work.”
When the owner learns about the order, he tells his server to ask the customer (Frank) to pre-pay and then continues to drink with customers at the bar. Even though Frank pays the bill, is friendly to everyone around him and shares the pizza with other customers, Gil and Rick are angry at Frank.
And then Dave walks in and joins Frankie and tries the pizza too. When Dave complains about how doughy the pizza is and his beer is flat, over at the bar co-owner Gil is heard uttering a not-so-vague threat, saying that he’s staying away from their table “because if I go over there I’m gonna slap him (Dave) in the goddamn teeth.”
Taffer gets to the heart of the failing business and helps turn it around and into Sauced Bar Pizzeria and Sandwiches. It’s now described as “a sports-centric pizzeria offering slices, specialty pies, draft beer & regular poker tournaments.” New episodes of Bar Rescue air Sundays at 10 pm on Paramount Network.
No one knows pizza better than @stoolpresidente. 🍕@JonTaffer SHUTS IT DOWN this Sunday at 10/9c on a new #BarRescue. 👊 pic.twitter.com/QAavBkHciv
— Bar Rescue (@BarRescue) May 18, 2019
