(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 9 | View All Season 9 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: February 23, 2025
The Bar's Original Name Was: Interlude II
Interlude II Address: 514 57th St Kenosha, WI 53140
Episode Recap
Interlude II, AKA Interlude 2 or The Long Bar at Interlude II, was a Kenosha, Wisconsin bar that was featured on Season 9 of Bar Rescue.
Though the Interlude II Bar Rescue episode aired in February 2025, the actual filming and visit from Bar Rescue took place before that in August 2024.
It was Season 9 Episode 23 and the episode name was “Jimmy Meet World”.
In the first episode of the second set of Season 9, Jon Taffer is heading to Kenosha, Wisconsin.
This marks Jon’s third visit to Wisconsin, with both of the other visits happening all the way back in Season 4 in Milwaukee.
Jon Taffer and his experts are in Kenosha to rescue the Interlude II Bar and Grill.
Interlude II has been open in Kenosha for a long time, getting its start in 1963.
If my math is correct, this means that it’s been open for ~62 years before Taffer’s visit, which makes it one of the older bars to appear on the show.
However, longevity doesn’t always mean quality, which you can probably guess by the fact that Interlude II is showing up on Bar Rescue.
The bar is owned by Jimmy Pruett, which is why the episode’s name is Jimmy Meet World.
Jimmy seems like a nice guy but maybe a little clueless about running a bar business.
For example, the bar has no signature cocktails, untrained bartenders, no marketing, no aesthetics, etc.
When Taffer recons the bar with his experts, he notices some weird stuff.
To start, there are some problems with the food.
The bar sells pizza…but they’re legitimately just throwing a frozen pizza in an oven (in front of the customers).
If I’m buying pizza at the bar, I’m not really expecting them to just unwrap a pizza from plastic shrink wrap.
It’s also not even a real oven – it’s just some weird toaster oven thing, even though the bar does have an actual kitchen.
Note – the bar doesn’t lie about this, which I think is good at least. They’re completely upfront that they’re serving frozen pizza.
Taffer pulls out his PHD in bar science to point out that food makes people stay longer, which makes them drink more, which means more money for the bar.
The drinks aren’t much better, as the bartender butchers making an Old Fashioned, including adding grenadine to the drink (which shouldn’t be there).
The final Old Fashioned looks red…which is just not right.
Being unable to make a classic drink like an Old Fashioned is a pretty big red flag.
On the upside, the bartender is at least nice to the spies, which is more than you can say for a lot of other bars that appear on the show.
However, all of those things can be fixed when Jon Taffer and his crew get to training the staff and renovating the bar.
Because of the bar’s long history in Kenosha, Jon Taffer opted to keep the same Interlude II name.
I did see one sign mentioning something about “The Long Bar at Interlude II” – so maybe he did tweak it a little bit (I’ll have to confirm after watching the episode).
But in general, the bar’s main name is still Interlude II even after Taffer’s visit.
When someone on Facebook said they were surprised that Taffer didn’t change the name, the owners responded that there was “Too much family history with the Interlude name.”.
Jon Taffer did add a brand new sign, though.
The Bar Rescue crew also painted the building a nice shade of blue.
In my opinion, both of those changes led to a significant improvement in the outdoor aesthetics of Interlude II.
In true Bar Rescue fashion, Jon Taffer also added several Call to Actions to the bar’s windows, including the following:
- Ice Cold Beer
- Great Times
- Classic Cocktails
- Good Eats
Who doesn’t love great times and an ice cold beer? I know that I would be called to action if I walked by haha.
Here’s a look at what the exterior looked like after Taffer’s visit:
So – was the Interlude 2 Bar Rescue visit a long-term success?
Keep reading my update to learn what happened next and if the bar is still open in 2025.
Interlude II Update - What Happened Next?
Now that I’ve recapped the episode, let’s talk about how the Interlude 2 is doing after the visit from Taffer and his crew.
Interlude II reaction to the episode
Whenever possible, I always like to look at the bar’s reaction to Taffer’s visit, as this is usually a good sign of whether they liked their Bar Rescue experience.
In that respect, Interlude II seems to have really embraced the Bar Rescue journey, posting about it a ton on the bar’s Facebook page.
Seriously – they’ve been posting about it pretty regularly since all the way back in August, including promoting the Bar Rescue changes around the time of Taffer’s original visit (August 2024):
Interlude II also hosted its own watch party for when the episode aired on TV.
The watch party includes a 50/50 raffle where people can purchase tickets for $5 each, with the proceeds split between the winner and the staff.
Is Interlude II still open after Bar Rescue?
As of my most recent check, Interlude II is still open and serving customers in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Because the bar has already been open for more than 60 years, it really doesn’t surprise me that it’s still open.
The bar is very active on its social media profiles, which I think is usually a good thing (especially because the community also seems to engage with the bar’s post).
In addition to lots of promotion for the bar’s Bar Rescue watch party, Interlude II also seems to post about other things going on at the bar, such as specials and events like Tyson vs Paul.
Personal side note – the Tyson vs Paul fight was garbage. Let me know if you agree in the comments.
Interlude II also posted that it was hiring bartenders in December 2024, a couple of months before the episode aired on TV.
I think that’s a good sign, right?
Here’s what the Interlude II location looks like in the most recent picture from Google Maps street view – it hasn’t updated since the changes so it still shows the bar’s old exterior.
I’m mainly including it so that you can easily explore the area around the bar.
Interlude II reviews after Bar Rescue
Next, let’s take a look at some reviews for the bar that were written after Taffer’s visit.
Despite the bar’s long history in Kenosha, it actually doesn’t have very many reviews on popular platforms.
On Yelp, it has a 4.0 star rating on just 4+ reviews, while it has a 4.3 star rating on 79+ Google reviews.
Both of those numbers include reviews from both before and after Taffer’s visit, though.
As always, I focus exclusively on reviews that were written after Taffer’s visit in this section.
None of the Yelp reviews came after Bar Rescue.
However, on Google, there are some recent reviews that seem to be a bit mixed, but slightly more positive than negative.
I’ll start with the positive reviews and then look at the negative ones.
5 star review from 2025:
5 star review from late 2024:
5 star review from 2024:
4 star review from 2024:
3 star review from 2025:
1 star review from 2025:
Final thoughts on the episode
Overall, Interlude II seems to still be doing well after its Bar Rescue episode.
Given that the bar had already been open for more than 60 years at the time of Taffer’s visit, it doesn’t really surprise me that it’s still open after the episode aired.
Still, I hope that the changes Taffer made can help modernize the bar and let it achieve more success.
The upgrades are already a huge improvement, so I’m hopeful they can keep it up if they follow Taffer’s training.
That wraps up my thoughts on the Interlude II episode.
If you want to see updates for the two other Wisconsin bars that Jon Taffer rescued in Season 4, you can also read my updates for Nick’s House / Y-Not III in Milwaukee (what’s with the roman numerals in Wisconsin bars?) and Packy’s Pub / Campbell’s Irish Pub in Milwaukee.
And if you want to join other commenters in sharing your thoughts on the bar or the episode, you can do so using the comment section below.
As always – thank you for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/interlude-ii-tavern-kenoshahttps://www.facebook.com/p/Interlude-II-100076427660406/
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Last updated: 2025-02-23 06:04
How do you know all of this information about the bar before the episode even airs?
I can usually find out the bar based on the episode description, which is added like two weeks before it airs. If I can’t find it based on the episode information, I usually wait for the preview video (which comes out like two days before it airs).
Some bars are harder than others to discover. This one was pretty easy because they posted about the Bar Rescue visit on social media a lot.
She is also active on Reddit and engages with locals to get more info.
Even though the cast signs NDA’s, it often makes the local news when BR comes to film.
Sometimes redditors disagree (see the discussion about Pat and Dandy’s vs. Frogtown Johnnies being the Toledo spot coming up–in reality, it is probably both since they shoot 3-4 episodes in the same region). Also sometimes the identity of the rescued bar is mistaken for the one where they are doing training.
Jon sometimes mentions where he has filmed when interviewed for podcasts and radio shows. The experts will also usually give some clues on their social media.
For the rest of season 9 to air in 2025, there are probably a couple in Toledo to go along with some in Chesterfield and Holly around Detroit, several in the St. Louis area, and of course greater Milwaukee.
It’s getting harder to visit these places, as they are getting further away from major metro areas.
Why did they quit serving food ?
I’m not sure. I guess most people just want to drink and not eat. Maybe it’s a Wisconsin thing haha.