(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 10 | View All Season 10 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: April 26, 2026
The Bar's Original Name Was: Big Dog Saloon
Big Dog Saloon Address: 4060 County Rd 19A, Mt Dora, FL 32757
Episode Recap
Big Dog Saloon was a Mount Dora, Florida bar that was featured on Season 10 of Bar Rescue.
Though the Big Dog Saloon Bar Rescue episode aired in April 2026, the actual filming and visit from Bar Rescue took place around a year before that.
It was Season 10 Episode 11 and the episode name was “Hair of the Big Dog”.
In this episode, Jon Taffer and the Bar Rescue crew are back in Florida.
This episode marks the show’s 39th visit to the state, which makes it the second-most popular state for the show to visit (only trailing behind California).
More specifically, they’re in Mount Dora, Florida, which the show has visited before.
It’s actually the second bar that Bar Rescue has rescued in Mount Dora.
If you’re not familiar with Florida geography, Mount Dora is located just outside Orlando.
This time, Taffer is in town to rescue a bar named Big Dog Saloon, which seems to have a pretty polarizing reputation in the Mount Dora community.
To recon the bar, Taffer sends in two spies while he watches with one of the bar’s owners.
The guy orders a bourbon and coke and the lady orders a margarita.
The drinks are super strong, which Taffer takes issue with.
Personally, I love a strong drink! But Taffer doesn’t like it because it means people might not order a second.
The bigger issue, though, is that there are fruit flies all over the bar.
It’s so bad that one of the spies is literally catching the fruit flies with his hand.
After drinks, the spies ask about food.
The only options are frozen pizza and popcorn, which ain’t great.
The pizza is literally just store-bought frozen pizza being resold for a small markup.
The people preparing the pizza also seem to have no food safety training
After watching everything, Taffer calls it “very sad”.
Because I’m writing this the day before the episode airs on TV, that’s all of the information that I have on the episode.
However, based on my research, it seems like Taffer decided to keep the original Big Dog Saloon name.
Instead of changing the name, he just gave it some renovations and much better branding.
So – was the Big Dog Saloon Bar Rescue episode a long-term success?
Keep reading my update to learn what happened next and if this Mt. Dora, Florida bar is still open in 2026.
Big Dog Saloon Update - What Happened Next?
Now that I’ve recapped the rescue as much as possible, let’s shift gears and start talking about how the bar is doing after Jon Taffer and his crew left Mount Dora.
This one has some ups and downs and is one of the more interesting updates for the season 10 bars so far.
I’ll start by talking about whether or not the bar is still open, along with some interesting details behind that.
Then, I’ll take a look at some real customer reviews from after Taffer rescued the bar.
Along the way, I’ll also share any other interesting details that I’m able to turn up.
Let’s get into it…
Is Big Dog Saloon still open?
As of my most recent check, Big Dog Saloon is now open again and serving customers in Mount Dora, Florida.
However, not without some ups and downs, including a closure and a change in ownership.
Under the ownership that you saw on Bar Rescue, Big Dog Saloon actually closed in late 2025.
Here’s the bar’s Instagram post announcing its closure back in December 2025:
Last Call at Big Dog Saloon
The Big Dog family invites you to our final Saturday night
We are so sad for what we’ve all built together as a community to come to an end.
But grateful for all of you and the memories we have.
So let’s make our last weekend our best one.
The bar closed because the property was sold to a developer.
The developer seems to own a few properties/businesses in the area, including a place across the street named Botanico Tacos & Tequila.
Here’s a news article from a local publication that covers both the closure of Big Dog Saloon, along with the sale to the developer.
This Facebook post from the Orlando Business Journal also has some comments from locals sharing their thoughts on the closure/sale.
After closing in December 2025, the bar seems to have remained that way for a few months.
However, it seems like the developer who purchased the property has now re-opened it in April 2026.
The newly reopened bar shares the same Big Dog Saloon name and location.
Here’s the Facebook post from the bar’s new ownership announcing the re-opening in April 2026:
And then here’s another article from the Orlando Business Journal that covers Big Dog Saloon re-opening under new ownership.
And here’s a Facebook post from a local page called Mount Dora Buzz that has lots of comments from people about the re-opening.
Because there’s still a bar at that location operating under the Big Dog Saloon name, I have left it marked as open.
But the bar did close under the ownership that you saw on the show, so I was close to marking this as closed.
I still might change it – if you have any thoughts on whether it should be marked as “closed” or “opened”, let me know in the comments.
The new owner has created an official website for Big Dog Saloon.
The website doesn’t include a menu, so I can’t share any information about the new menu/prices at the bar.
However, it does list some of the regular events and specials.
Here’s what the Big Dog Saloon location looks like in the most recent picture from Google Maps street view…
Google updated the picture in December 2025, so it already shows the new branding from Bar Rescue (though not the renovations from the new owner).
Big Dog Saloon reviews after Bar Rescue
Next, let’s take a look at some real customer reviews for the bar that were written after Taffer’s rescue.
Thankfully, the new owner seems to have kept the bar’s original Google Business page, so I can still see the old reviews.
Overall, Big Dog Saloon has a 4.0 star rating on 490+ Google reviews.
However, that number includes reviews from both before and after the rescue (along with the change in ownership).
While there aren’t a ton of post-rescue reviews, it seems like the ones that do exist are mostly positive.
There are a few negative reviews mixed in, but most people seem to have liked the changes.
Final thoughts on the episode
Overall, this one seems like a bit of a mixed bag.
Under the ownership that you saw on the show, Big Dog Saloon closed in December 2025, which is before its episode even aired on TV.
The property was purchased by a local developer who eventually re-opened Big Dog Saloon at that same location.
For that reason, I have this one marked as “Open” for now.
But again, if you think it makes more sense to mark this as “Closed”, let me know in the comments.
It will be interesting to see whether the new owner is able to make a succesfull business using the Big Dog Saloon name.
That wraps up my Big Dog Saloon Bar Rescue update.
If you want to see the other Mount Dora bar that Jon Taffer rescued, you can also read my update for Lake House / Sidelines.
And if you want to share your thoughts on Big Dog Saloon or the episode in general, you can do so using the comments section below.
As always – thank you for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/big-dog-saloon-mount-dorahttps://www.instagram.com/bigdogsaloonmtd/
What did you think about the episode? I'd love it if you shared your thoughts on the episode in the comments below!
You can also click the buttons below to share this post!
And don't forget to check out all of the other Bar Rescue updates.
Last updated: 2026-04-26 08:23