(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 9 | View All Season 9 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: April 7, 2024
The Bar's Original Name Was: Finesse Lounge
47 Social Address: 144 W Ramsey St, Banning, CA 92220
Episode Recap
Finesse Lounge, later renamed to 47 Social Dining & Lounge, was a Banning California bar that was featured on Season 9 of Bar Rescue.
Though the 47 Social Bar Rescue episode aired in April 2024, the actual filming and visit from Jon Taffer took place around August or September 2023.
It was Season 9 Episode 7 and the episode name was “My Brother’s Barkeeper”.
In this episode, the Bar Rescue crew heads to Finesse Lounge.
Finesse Lounge is located in Banning, CA.
If you’re not familiar with this city (I wasn’t!), Banning is in Riverside County, located to the east of Los Angeles.
At the time that the episode aired on TV, Finesse Lounge marked Bar Rescue’s 51st visit to California.
California is by far the most popular state for the show to visit.
The owner of Finesse Lounge is AJ Cabral.
He opened the bar/club back in 2019, which is a tough year to have opened a bar because that’s right before the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions hit.
Based on the episode title, it seems like a lot of the episode will focus on how the bar is damaging the relationship between AJ and his sister.
To recon the bar, Jon Taffer and his experts sent in two spies.
When the spies order, things are not good.
The guy who waits on them seems annoyed that they ask for a menu, and then he doesn’t understand the dishes that the spies order.
While that’s going on, AJ seems to be unable to access the POS because he doesn’t have the passcode, which obviously ain’t great.
The whole bar just generally seems to have problems with the POS, as the spies’ orders didn’t actually get logged in the system.
As always, I’m writing this a day before the episode airs, so I will need to come back and do a more detailed recap after the episode goes public.
I do know the new concept that Taffer tried to put in, though.
To help the bar, Jon Taffer and his crew changed the name from Finesse Lounge to 47 Social: Lounge & Dining.
So, they do kind of keep the “lounge” concept, but the name is different (at least for a little bit – spoiler alert!).
So was the Finesse Lounge Bar Rescue visit a long-term success?
Keep reading to learn what happened next and if this Banning CA bar is still open today.
47 Social Update - What Happened Next?
Now that we’ve recapped Taffer’s visit to Finesse Lounge / 47 Social, let’s talk about what happened to the bar after Taffer and his crew left Banning CA.
First, I’ll talk about whether the bar is still open and using the new name/concept from the Bar Rescue episode.
Then, I’ll cover what type of events the bar has, along with how it seems to be doing in customer reviews after the episode.
Before that, I usually like to see whether the bar hosted a Bar Rescue watch party.
However, I don’t see any evidence of that happening, as there are no posts on the bar’s Facebook page or AJ’s personal Facebook page.
Given that, let’s get right into it…
Is 47 Social still open after Bar Rescue?
As of my most recent check, 47 Social is still open and serving customers in Banning CA.
However, it seems to be doing so under the original Finesse Lounge name, having stopped using the 47 Social name a few months after Taffer’s visit.
If you look at the posts on the bar’s Facebook page (which is just named “Finesse Lounge”), you can see them gradually shift from calling the bar both Finesse Lounge and 47 Social to using the Finesse Lounge name exclusively.
Back in October 2023, I saw the first post referencing the name, with it saying “New Name & New Decor” and listing both names of the bar:
They seem to have continued using both names for a couple of months.
For example, this New Year’s promotional post shows both names for the bar – it says ‘Finesse Lounge “47 Social”‘.
However, if you look at a more recent promotional post from 2024, you can see that it now just shows the Finesse Lounge name and the 47 Social name is nowhere to be found.
For example, this post about live music in February 2024 only shows the Finesse Lounge name.
I’m not sure about the exact date that they switched back, but they never seem to have really embraced the 47 Social name.
With that being said, they do still seem to have the 47 Social name displayed inside the bar.
I’m not sure if that’s because they’re still kind of using it in some situations or if they just haven’t had time to re-do the renovations.
For example, in this video from February 2024, you can still see the big 47 Social sign in the background.
If you’ve been there in person and know anything more, please let me know in the comments.
In terms of events and specials, the bar seems to have a good variety of things going on.
As I showed you above, they seem to have live music fairly regularly.
They also have karaoke on Wednesday nights, along with a deal that gives you three shots for $10 (a great way to get drunk fast lol).
They also have a “paint and sip” event where people can drink and paint at the same time, which is something that I’ve seen at some other bars from the show.
Interestingly, the February 2024 Facebook promo post for that event does include “#47social” in the description, though the actual image only says “Finesse Lounge”.
Here’s what the Finesse Lounge / 47 Social Banning CA location looks like in the most recent picture from Google Maps street view…
The picture hasn’t been updated since 2022 so it still shows the original Finesse Lounge branding – I’m mainly including it so that you can explore the area around the bar.
47 Social / Finesse Lounge reviews after Bar Rescue
Next, let’s take a look at some real customer reviews of Finesse Lounge / 47 Social from after the Bar Rescue visit.
At the time that the episode aired on TV, the bar has a 3.4 star rating on 11+ Yelp reviews and a 4.3 star rating on 56+ Google reviews.
However, both of those numbers include reviews from both before and after the Bar Rescue episode.
Overall, it’s hard to gauge how things have changed after Bar Rescue because there aren’t a lot of quality reviews written about the bar.
There seem to be a good mix of positive and negative reviews, but most of the reviews aren’t very detailed so it’s hard to draw meaningful conclusions.
To let you make your own decision, I’ve dug through the reviews to feature all of the reviews that I can find from after the 47 Social renovation.
4 star Google review from September 2023:
A few 5 star reviews without much text:
Three short 5-star Yelp reviews from:
1 star Yelp review from February 2024:
2 star Yelp review from January 2024:
Jon Taffer would hate this review – having drunk bartenders is totally embracing excuses.
2 star Yelp review from November 2023:
Finally, I also thought it was worth sharing this “review” from what seems to be a disgruntled competitor who was annoyed by Bar Rescue.
I don’t think this is a legitimate review of the bar, but I thought it was interesting that the person accused the Bar Rescue producers of going around and “getting neighboring businesses shut down”.
Final thoughts on Finesse Lounge / 47 Social
Overall, Finesse Lounge seems to be doing ok so far.
However, they seem to ditched the 47 Social name from Bar Rescue, so they don’t seem to be sticking with the show’s concept.
They did use both names for a time, but they now seem to only use Finesse Lounge on social media posts.
With that being said, they do seem to still have some of the 47 Social signage up inside the bar (at least they did as of February 2024).
Will that work out long term? I don’t know…
But for now, Finesse Lounge is still open.
That wraps up my Bar Rescue update for 47 Social / Finesse Lounge.
If you want to see some other Riverside area Bar Rescue episodes, you also might be interested in my posts about The Victory / Celebrities in Yucaipa, Derby’s / The Wheel House in Hemet, Par Bar / Pepe’s in Canyon Lake, JJ’s Sports Bar in Highland, and Papa Joe’s / Layla’s Pizza Pub in Moreno Valley.
I also have a post that lists all 51+ California bars that the show has visited.
And if you want to share your thoughts on Finesse Lounge and/or the Bar Rescue episode, you can do so using the comments section below.
As always – thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/finesse-lounge-banninghttps://www.facebook.com/FINESSELOUNGE144/
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Last updated: 2024-04-09 09:00
Why do these owners even bother doing the show if they’re not going to keep the name?
Taffer should make them sign a contract or something so that they can’t switch back for a certain period of time.
Seems like they just want free stuff.
I don’t think Bar Rescue cares tbh – they just want to get their content for the episode.
I do agree that it would be nice to see bars stick with the concept, though.
Air date is April 7,2024 not March 31, 2024
Good catch – I clicked the wrong option on the date picker. Just fixed it.
So big sis is still drinking behind the bar… shocker. The review above from Elijah mentioned Julian as the Manager. Was that the nephew?
We were driving to Beaumont from Palm Springs. Figured we would stop in
for a drink. It was Sunday March 3, 2024 at 9PM. First off we were amazed
how Dark the street was in Banning. We drove by the Bar looked inside and
didnt see anyone in the Bar. Drove around the block again My wife noticed
a man standing outside on the sidewalk in front of the Bar My wife said she
wasnt getting a Good Vibe and suggested we leave the area. We Never made
it in to see the Bar. They need more street lights in the Area because it
was Very dark and certainly Not a Welcoming atmosphere.
Sounds sketch! Thanks for sharing your experience.
These are the episodes that are really dull and I feel hurt the show. This rescue was pretty boring to be honest.
When a show starts to “go through the motions” I feel that’s when they start to risk losing the audience. ‘Been there, seen that.’
I enjoyed reading the earlier reviews when you listed the purchase price, the debt owed by who and the owners. Also you listed the employees, problems encountered and what happened. It was like a time line but the newer reviews are hard to keep up with because most of the info is not listed as in this review, who is JULIAN is the owner JR or is that the nephew.
It has gotten hard to follow in the last few years.
Just my thoughts.