(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 9 | View All Season 9 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: June 2, 2024
The Bar's Original Name Was: Gerri's Sports Pub
Jerzy's Pub Address: 6500 W Atlantic Blvd Margate, FL 33063
Episode Recap
Gerri’s Sports Pub, later renamed to Jerzy’s Pub, was a Margate Florida bar that was featured on Season 9 of Bar Rescue.
Though the Gerri’s Sports Pub Bar Rescue episode aired in June 2024, the actual filming and visit from Jon Taffer took place in March 2024.
It was Season 9 Episode 14 and the episode name was “Thank You for (Not) Smoking”.
In this episode, Jon Taffer is back rescuing bars in person as he heads to Florida.
More specifically, he and his experts are in Margate Florida to rescue Gerri’s Sports Pub.
If you’re not familiar with Florida geography, Margate is in Broward County and part of the Miami metropolitan area in South Florida.
At the time that the episode aired, this marked the show’s 32nd visit to Florida, which makes it one of the most popular states on the show.
Gerri’s is a local dive bar that’s been around for a long time.
It’s owned by Jerry and Elena (spelling?), who came to America for the good ‘ole American dream.
It’s nothing fancy – just a regular old dive bar.
There is one little twist, though – people can still legally smoke at Gerri’s.
The bar is able to still be a smoking bar because it was grandfathered into an older system that allowed it.
As such, everything in the bar is all yellowed.
Plus, in addition to the customers smoking, the staff also smokes behind the bar.
That’s still illegal, even though the bar is grandfathered in.
Obviously, Jon Taffer takes issues with this as it’s driving away a huge customer base (non-smokers).
Given that, one of Jon’s primary goals at the bar is to get them to go non-smoking.
Overall, Jon calls Gerri’s one of the “most unappealing environments he’s ever seen”, which I guess is kind of impressive?
I mean, Jon has rescued well over 200 bars now, so there’s a lot of competition haha.
He also calls it an “insult to dive bars”.
As part of rescuing the bar, Jon Taffer changed the name from Gerri’s Sports Pub to Jerzy’s Pub.
He also got them to commit to non-smoking, which is a big change and sure to cause some issues with the regulars.
So – was the Jerzy’s Pub Bar Rescue renovation a long-term success?
Keep reading to learn what happened next and if this Margate, FL bar is still open in 2025.
Jerzy's Pub Update - What Happened Next?
Now that I’ve recapped the episode, let’s talk about how the bar is doing after Jon Taffer and his crew left Margate, Florida.
First, I’ll talk about whether the bar is still open and using Taffer’s concept, along with some recent customer reviews.
Then, I’ll share some fun behind-the-scenes stuff I turned up while researching, such as a drug bust at the bar a few years before Taffer’s visit.
Is Jerzy’s Pub still open after Bar Rescue?
As of my most recent check in 2024, the bar is still open and serving customers in Margate, FL.
However, I can’t entirely tell whether it’s continuing to use the new Jerzy’s Pub name or it’s gone back to the original Gerri’s Sports Pub name.
It’s hard to confirm this either way because the bar has such a minimal online presence.
The only online presence that I can find is a Facebook page that hasn’t been updated since 2021.
However, the Google Business profile still lists it as Gerri’s Sports Pub and recent reviews refer to it as “Gerri’s”.
I don’t know if that’s an intentional choice or just because they haven’t bothered to go on and change it.
At the same time, it seems to be officially registered as Jerzy’s Pub with the government.
For example, the bar received a warning from the Broward County Restaurant Inspections in April 2024 (after Bar Rescue).
That page still refers to it as Jerzy’s Pub.
If you’re wondering, it had issues with no temperature probe, unlabeled spray bottles, and issues with employee training/policies.
If you live in the area and know anything specific, please let me know in the comments.
In terms of events at the bar, it’s also hard for me to share anything because the bar doesn’t really seem to promote anything.
The only thing I can find is a regular karaoke event where the karaoke host herself promotes it.
She actually made a post promoting the change from Gerri’s to Jerzy’s.
However, she hasn’t promoted any events at the bar since then, which is another reason that it’s hard for me to figure out whether it’s still using Taffer’s concept.
I tried to check Google Maps street view, but that also hasn’t updated for a few years, so it still shows the older Gerri’s branding.
Regardless, I’ll embed the street view below so that you can explore the area around the bar:
Reviews of the bar from after Taffer’s visit
As I mentioned above, the bar doesn’t really have much of an online presence, so it’s tough to find a lot of reviews.
For example, the bar’s Yelp page only has six reviews, none of which were written after Taffer’s visit.
If you’re curious, the average of those six reviews is 3.8 stars.
On Google, the bar has an overall 4.4 star rating on 110+ reviews.
Again, the Google listing still shows the bar as “Gerri’s” and not “Jerzy’s”.
Additionally, most of those Google reviews were before Taffer’s visit.
However, there have been a few reviews written after Taffer rescued the bar.
All three of those reviews are five stars, though it seems like one person meant to leave a bad rating based on the actual text of the review.
Here are the two unambiguously positive reviews:
And then here’s the one that I think the person meant to be negative:
What’s that mention about drug dealing? Well, let’s talk about that next haha…
There have been some sketchy things going on at the bar before Taffer’s visit
These don’t have anything to do with the Bar Rescue episode, but I did turn up some interesting little tidbits when researching the bar.
In 2021, there was a crack cocaine bust at Gerri’s Sports Pub.
It seems like a guy was using the bar as his dealing spot.
The police nabbed him by sending in a confidential informant to make a buy at the bar.
The Margate News has some more details on the story.
Then, in July 2023, there was a violent altercation at the bar.
According to a local publication, police were called to the bar to respond to a “violent customer with a firearm”.
The man was in a fight with another patron, which caused him to get kicked out by the Gerri’s staff.
After he was asked to leave, he continued fighting with some other people.
While other people were trying to kick him out of the bar, a firearm fell out of his pocket.
He then tried to come back into the bar for a third time to retrieve his firearm.
People subdued him and held him until the police arrived.
Unsurprisingly, the patron had previous convictions that meant he was in illegal possession of the firearm.
So…yeah, it seems like Gerri’s Sports Pub attracts an…interesting audience, so to speak.
This is true of a lot of dive bars, though, so it’s definitely not unique to Gerri’s.
Final thoughts on the episode
Overall, it’s hard for me to have any long-term predictions for the bar because it has such a small online presence.
I can’t even tell whether it’s using the original Gerri’s name or is continuing to use Jerzy’s.
With that being said, dive bars can usually survive for a long time even if it doesn’t seem like they should (looking at you, O Face Bar).
For that reason, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it stay open for a long time.
If you want to see some other nearby Florida episodes, you can also read my updates for Bamboo Beach Tiki Club, Boca Luna Luxe Lounge / One11, Ele Lounge / Heat Restaurant, and Bonny and Read’s / Toucan’s.
I also have a page that lists all 31+ episodes in Florida.
And if you want to share your thoughts on the bar, the episode, and/or Taffer’s changes, you can do so using the comments section below.
As always, thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/gerris-sports-pub-margatehttps://www.facebook.com/GerrisSportsPubMargate/
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Last updated: 2024-06-02 08:48
I laughed a few times at this post. Seems like a shitty bar before and after.
right when they are talking about the mouldy pizzas, the door has health and safety notices about all goods needing to be dated and labelled!
and the woman at the end who knew the camera was on her so she quickly opened up her jacket more for us all to get a load of her …. in-show advertising.
Your recaps aren’t recaps anymore. Maybe you’re too busy with life but your posts were far more detailed and thoughtful.
For new episodes I write them before the episode airs on TV so that people can check during the episode premier. I will come back and update them with more detail now that the season seems to be over. I don’t have time to post for the new episode and update the recaps while the season is airing unfortunately since this is just a hobby for me.
Keep up the good work 👍
Great hobby. Since I’m Polish, by blood, I can kinda relate to this couple. Cute as they are, they too thought the bar could run all by itself with no interference from them. At least Jerzy was open to learning. I don’t think they realize what is going on with the drugs. Didn’t you see their faces at the two other bars they were being schooled in? It was almost as if they never knew bars were out there of that caliber because they’ve been sitting in theirs for so long.
I do believe they are people of their word and they did all that Jon said, but ‘still’ haven’t looked up what other things he forgot to tell them as listed in the health report. Isn’t this also kinda quick for the HD to come around for this rescue? I wonder if someone called them. Sad, it would appear this couple really worked hard and although I think some of their regulars were taking advantage of them using their bar to sell drugs and apparently still are, it’s sad what type of Americans they are still running into. I’m glad Jon showed them some of us are different.
As for the negative comment, it wasn’t on the bar but the person they referred to who is not an owner of the bar but someone they are trying to warn people about. So, giving them five stars for the bar was fine though I can understand their aggravation about that women being there and it seems she would be easy to find and the cops could get rid of her.
I hope they get more ethnic groups to stop in. I’m sure they’d love to hear some Polish or anything from the surrounding areas. I’ve never been to Poland or that part of Europe but I’d give anything to hear my Father speak in Solvak to my Grandmother who could speak five different languges until her 90’s. She passed when she was 99. I hope I get to meet this couple some day. If not, I do hope their family is as interested as they have been to owning that bar and do great things.
Sto lat!