Crowne Irish Pub Bar Rescue Update (The Forge) – Still Open Today?

Is The Crowne Irish Pub still open today?

Status: >> CLOSED <<
(keep reading to learn what happened)

Season: 8 | View All Season 8 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: May 29, 2022
The Bar's Original Name Was: The Forge Irish Pub
The Crowne Irish Pub Address: 109 W Bloomingdale Ave, Brandon, FL 33511

Crowne Irish Pub Bar Rescue Update (The Forge)

Episode Recap

The Forge, later renamed to Crowne Irish Pub, was a Tampa / Brandon, Florida bar that was featured on Season 8 of Bar Rescue.

Though the The Forge Bar Rescue episode aired in May 2022, the actual filming and visit from Jon Taffer took place a few months before that in March 2022.

It was Season 8 Episode 22 and the episode name was “Till Failure Do You Part”.

In this episode, Jon Taffer and his crew visit The Forge Irish Pub.

The bar is located in Brandon, Florida, which isn’t a very Irish area as far as I’m aware. But I guess everyone enjoys a good Irish bar haha.

Brandon has a population of a little over 100,000 people and is located just outside Tampa, FL, which is where Jon Taffer visited a few different bars in the second half of Season 8.

The bar is owned by Patrick Crowne, who opened the bar in 2019 with his then-wife Mariely Crowne just before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Patrick Crowne the Forge owner on Bar Rescue

Patrick had experience as a bartender in New York City and Mariely also had experience in the hospitality industry as a waitress.

Patrick said that he got butterflies as soon as he entered the bar as he knew it was the right place for his business.

Things started off amazing. In the first year, it brought in over $1 million sales, which are great numbers for a bar.

Everything was great until the Covid-19 pandemic, which happened about a year after they opened.

Health restrictions and people’s wariness of going to bars hurt the business and it’s never really recovered.

In 2020, Patrick Crowne lost $600,000, which is just absolutely massive.

It’s easy to see why The Forge Bar Rescue episode exists with so much money going down the drain.

This financial pressure caused a lot of issues for Patrick, understandably.

Mariely Crowne the Forge owner on Bar Rescue

He had issues with depression and alcohol during this low period, which ended with him divorcing his wife, Mariely.

The divorce was filed in November 2021 – you can see the legal page here.

Despite the divorce, Patrick and Mariely are still business partners and you see both of them in the Forge Bar Rescue episode.

Obviously, this causes some tension between the two of them while trying to work together.

The staff recognizes this tension and it makes it awkward for them to do their jobs.

They also fight inside the bar, which has caused some customers to leave, too.

Things are so bad that the bar literally has a month to live if Jon Taffer and his crew can’t turn things around.

To help rescue The Forge, Jon enlisted the help of two of his experts.

Mia Mastroianni handled the bar and mixology, while Anthony Lamas handled the food and kitchen.

During the episode, a lot of Taffer’s work involves the relationship between Patrick and Mariely.

Jon definitely puts his experience from Marriage Rescue (a ridiculous show haha) to good work.

As part of the rescue, Jon Taffer renamed the bar from The Forge Irish Pub to The Crowne Irish Pub, which is obviously named after Patrick.

The Crowne Irish Pub after Bar Rescue

While Jon Taffer kept the Irish theme, he made it much nicer and redid the interior.

Patrick also got lots of goodies, including the ever-popular Partender subscription.

To relaunch the new bar concept, Jon Taffer brought in an Irish band.

So was The Forge Bar Rescue visit a long-term success?

Keep reading my update to learn what happened next and if this Brandon FL bar is still open in 2024.

The Crowne Irish Pub Update - What Happened Next?

Now that we’ve recapped the Crowne Irish Pub Bar Rescue episode, let’s talk about what happened to the bar after Jon Taffer and his crew left Brandon, FL.

First off, if you want some interesting back story, a local radio station actually did an interview with Patrick Crowne, the Crowne Irish Pub owner, about his experience on Bar Rescue.

The interview has a lot of juicy nuggets.

For example Patrick’s bar was originally scouted by the production crew back in August 2021, before eventually being visited in March 2020.

He said the Bar Rescue producers actually scouted his bar – he didn’t reach out to them.

He called it a “blessing in disguise”, so he seems to be happy that they did.

He also seems very happy with the renovations and rebranding.

Additionally, he said that the renovations cost the Bar Rescue producers around $50,000-$70,000.

Bar Rescue owners never have to pay for the renovations, so this means that Patrick basically got all those renovations for free.

Patrick actually said that he thought that Bar Rescue was fake when he was just a viewer.

But actually going through a rescue, it changed his mind and he called it “unbelievable”.

If you want to see the full interview, you can check out the video below – the segment starts at around the 3:15:00 mark and the actual interview starts at around the 3:17:00 mark.

With that back story out of the way, let’s talk about the actual business at the bar after the Crowne Bar Rescue visit.

Is The Crowne Irish Pub from Bar Rescue still open?

The Crowne Irish Pub closed on July 17, 2022, which was around four months after Jon Taffer’s visit and just two months after the episode aired on TV.

In announcing the closure, Patrick posted the following the following message on the bar’s Facebook page:

To all the amazing guests at the Crowne Irish pub, formerly the Forge, past and present.

It has been an experience of a lifetime to be a member of the community and serve you all.

Unfortunately, due to a series of events, not really worth getting into, our doors will close for the last this Sunday night.

The concept of the bar was to bring a neighborhood atmosphere, music, food, and a drink or two.

A place where you could relax, unwind, and feel safe.

With that being said from the bottom of my heart thank you all again for supporting small businesses, employees current and past, musicians and vendors I couldn’t have done it without you.

I was hoping for more time for my employees’ sake, so before any Facebook warriors complain we have lined them up with jobs.

Blessed to have such a great network of small business owners who all have each other’s backs.

Slainte (cheers), Patrick

The Facebook post about the closure has lots of sad responses from musicians and customers, so it seems like a lot of people will be sad to see The Crowne Irish Pub disappear.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a screenshot and the Crowne Irish Pub Facebook page is now deleted so you can’t see the actual post.

It is nice that Patrick was able to find his employees new jobs – that’s a cool thing to do.

The old The Forge Brandon FL location was listed for rent on Loopnet since The Forge closed – you can see the listing page here.

For a while, it seemed to be vacant.

When I know what happens to The Crowne Brandon FL location, I will update this post with details for the new business.

According to a commenter below (thanks Albert), the property was fully gutted and is now occupied by a gym as of 2024.

I did some searching for the address and it seems like that gym might be named Burn Boot Camp.

So it seems like the location has done a real 180 from its bar/restaurant roots.

Now, you can get your sweat on and get in shape instead of drinking haha.

Here’s an embed from Google Maps street view so that you can explore the area – it hasn’t updated in a while so it’s still showing the sign for The Forge.

The Crowne Irish Pub Before Its Closure

Before its closure in July 2022, the bar actually seemed to be doing alright.

Patrick said that his customers loved the bar after the renovations because it felt more like a true Irish pub.

He also said that “business is slowly picking up” (as of April 5 2022).

The bar had also started being more active on social media and regularly posted events and specials.

Here’s a sampling of what they offered before the closure:

  • Live music on Fridays and Saturdays, with occasional Thursday night shows
  • Drink specials during games for local sports teams

The bar also hosted a watch party for the Crowne Bar Rescue episode.

However, reviews for The Crowne Irish Pub Brandon, FL seemed a bit mixed, which might explain why it closed.

The bar had just a 3.6 star rating on Google Reviews and a 3.5 star.

The Yelp page still included reviews from when it was The Forge Irish Pub, but the Google Reviews were all for the new branding.

The Crowne Irish Pub Reviews After Bar Rescue

Here’s a sampling of reviews that were written after the Forge Bar Rescue episode aired on TV.

4 star Yelp review from March 2022:

It’s no longer the Forge, it’s Crowne.

They’ve gone through changes after Bar Rescue.

There were 12 of us from a Foodies group, with prior reservations but Mariely Crowne never told me what was going on (after I confirmed with her 12 of us were coming) apparently she left them high and dry.

They had no idea we were coming! So unfair.

Regardless, the food was good and the mushroom appetizer was delish!

Our waiter worked very hard for us.

I would give them a couple months to get things ironed out and more staff on hand.

They are short handed. If a larger party goes in, you won’t be served all at the same time.

It was no big deal for us, we understand the situation they got dumped in their lap.

My Rueben was fantastic! The fish was good, what you expect at a bar. Burgers good.

5 star Google review from May 2022:

I came in today and drank a Guinness poured perfectly.

The staff is very friendly.

I am looking forward to coming back, especially for the food, and potentially music on Friday/Saturday and maybe Trivia on Thursdays.

5 star Google review from April 2022:

Visited The Crowne Irish Pub on 20 April and can not say enough about how pleased I am with this Pub.

There were 5 of us and we wanted to get a good idea about the Pub since their relaunch.

We each ordered different menu items and tried a couple of different cocktails.

All of the cocktails were well balanced and good.

We ordered 2 of their specialty cocktails (Michael’s Forge and The Dublin Mule (I think)).

Both were good and well balanced.

1 star Google review from May 2022:

Owner not friendly.

Bartender sneezes on stack of clean glasses and never washed his hands.

Hamburger patty is exactly the same size as a regular McDonald’s patty but costs way more.

Did they learn nothing from Bar Rescue??

1 star Google review from May 2022:

I don’t get the hype about this place.

Went there a couple times when it was The Forge and the only good thing was the music.

Tried again after the big revamp and WTH, like 5 things on the menu and horrific service.

Unfortunately one and done for us.

1 star Google review from April 2022:

Just horrific food and service.

They can pour a beer from the tap, I’ll give them that.

But the food is beyond bad.

Bland, overcooked, no unique flavoring.

Overpriced for what it is.

Name change on the door can’t change the fact the food is just not good.

And sometimes takes forever to come out of the kitchen, even when noone is there.

What happened to Mariely after the Crowne Bar Rescue episode?

As far as I can tell, Mariely Crowne is working as a realtor for the Tampa Bay area with Re/Max Bayside.

She has her own profile on Realtor.com and an active Facebook page.

She’s also working as a marketing coordinator at a local branding agency since March 2022 (which is when the Bar Rescue visit happened).

Mariely posted a video on her personal Facebook page around the time that the Crowne episode aired on TV about her experience.

She said that she only agreed to be on film because the Bar Rescue producers would not film the show unless she was there.

She wanted the bar to succeed because she’s part owner (and Patrick is still the father of her daughters), so she agreed to be in the show.

Mariely says the producers agreed with her that they would not discuss the divorce…which obviously didn’t happen because the divorce is in the episode name!

She said that they did all of their interviews separately, so she was very disappointed to see what Patrick said in his Bar Rescue interviews.

Overall, it’s good to remember that these are real people in the episode and the producers always want to manipulate things for as much drama as possible…even if it has negative effects on those people.

Final Thoughts on Crowne Irish Pub

Overall, Patrick, the owned, seemed happy with his experience on Bar Rescue.

While things seemed to start off well for the bar with an increase in business, it eventually closed just a few months after the Forge Bar Rescue episode aired on TV.

For a while, the old property seemed to be vacant.

However, I believe that it’s now occupied by a gym named Burn Boot Camp.

Jon Taffer visited several Tampa area bars in the second half of Bar Rescue Season 8.

If you want to see those other Tampa Bar Rescue episodes, you can find the updates for them below:

I also have a page that lists all 27+ Florida Bar Rescue episodes, along with their current statuses.

And if you want to share your thoughts on the Crowne Irish Pub episode, you can join lots of commenters below in the comments section.

Thanks for reading!


More Information

https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-forge-irish-pub-brandon
https://www.facebook.com/thecrowneirishpub


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Last updated: 2024-03-13 05:44

23 thoughts on “Crowne Irish Pub Bar Rescue Update (The Forge) – Still Open Today?”

All comments are the sole opinion of the commenter and are not endorsed by RealityTVUpdates.

  1. Wish you would leave the update comments like the six-week comments on longer I’d like to know what happened to Mariely

    Reply
    • Be nice haha. Mariely is working as a realtor as far as I can tell. She also seems to have another job as a marketing coordinator since March.

      Reply
    • I felt terrible for Mr. Crowne. He really tried to pull it together, salvage his bar, and keep his marriage off the rocks. When his wife skipped the grand opening, I knew everything was over. I hope that he can hang in there and return to his former studly glory.

      Reply
        • The Crowne Irish Pub is still open so far. They just had a July 4th event with specials and live music. Seems to be going well so far.

          I’ll edit the update if anything changes.

          Or do you mean The Forge was the dive bar that disappeared after Taffer’s changes?

          Reply
    • Thanks for letting me know! Sad that it wasn’t able to stay open for very long. I will update the post.

      Reply
  2. Yet another one of the TENS of THOUSANDS of businesses in this country that never recovered after the pandemic. Owners, like many others, lived beyond their means after the first year’s profits, thinking the money was going to keep coming in forever. To be fair, I’m sure they never foresaw the more-than-2-year-old plan our government had for destroying this country and closing businesses. The wife should never have been allowed anywhere near that place for any reason. Why the h&ll did he even have anything to do with her in the first place, let alone marry her? AND compounded those mistakes by having kids! Any guy worth his salt would have run from her. Far and fast. The damage was already done by her and by our government, so even with Florida officials having enough of the madness and fear-mongering, and doing what it could to help its residents and its business owners, this bar had too much going against it to ever recover, even with the help of Bar Rescue.

    Reply
  3. Oh Mariely, we just watched the episode, and we don’t believe a word you say. How can you talk about your ex-husband putting you down when the first words out of your mouth was that he was “Mental”. You did not have a good word to say about him until his workers and the host started saying what a good man Patrick is, then you got quiet, and he is a good man.

    Reply
  4. I’m thinking the business had to be divided in the finalization of the divorce…Patrick probably could have bought Mariely out if he had the money to do so, but couldn’t. So it had to be closed. Sad.

    Reply
  5. That woman hated her husband so much that she couldn’t even show up for the relaunch. Meanwhile, he probably got financially roasted in the divorce. Ungrateful skank.

    Reply
      • So… Props for the quick responses!! Oh, and I am a fan of the site for the recent updates.

        Dumb question: what’s the time zone for the server that hosts this site?

        I am literally watching the episode right now, and I started this reply at 12:52am Eastern Daylight Time, 13 Mar 24, but what I’m replying to is shown as 6:57am same date (no time zone listed).

        I don’t (currently) own a Delorean with a flux capacitor… so just wondering on the time discrepancy. 😁

        Reply
        • I think it’s set somewhere in Asia by accident. I’m scared to change it though lol so I just leave it as it is.

          Reply

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