(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 6 | View All Season 6 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: April 1, 2018
The Bar's Original Name Was: Kings Duck Inn
Kings Duck Inn Address: 4155 N Courtenay Pkwy Merritt Island, FL 32953
Episode Recap
Kings Duck Inn, sometimes abbreviated as KDI, was a Merritt Island, Florida bar that was featured on Season 6 of Bar Rescue.
Though the Kings Duck Inn Bar Rescue episode aired in April 2018, the actual filming and visit from Jon Taffer took place long before that in mid-2017.
It was Season 6 Episode 4 and the episode name was “Ground Control to Major Jon”.
King’s Duck Inn is located in Merritt Island, FL.
Merritt Island is located on the coast of Florida right near Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which is where the US launches rockets from.
That’s why the King’s Duck Inn Bar Rescue episode has “ground control” in the name.
In 1997, current owner Serena Biscontini took over the bar with her father.
The inn has been open since the 1960s and is down the street from the space center.
Serena ran the bar with her father but went into a nursing career after her sister Jean started helping at the bar.
The space center suffered from layoffs in 2011, which affected the bar.
Money has gone missing, and her sister left the business.
In 2014 Serena’s father died. Serena hired her daughter Amanda, but the two do not get along, affecting the inn.
Expert mixologist Mia Mastroianni and Chef Tiffany Derry join Jon Taffer to help save King’s Duck Inn.
The experts and Jon look at the bar and do not understand the name.
They also do not like the colors of the exterior.
The footage from inside shows Amanda and bartenders Amy and Terry. Kenny, aka Bobo, works as a barback, and Q is the cook.
The footage also shows unsafe practices in the kitchen and a slow, complicated POS system.
Amanda and her mother are fighting at the bar.
Jon Taffer goes in to split it up and sits with the pair.
The mother and daughter are very disrespectful, but they both want the best for the bar.
Jon returns the next day for a team meeting.
After asking some questions, Jon determines the bar is about a month away from closure, which is a big part of why the Kings Duck Inn Bar Rescue episode exists.
Serena tries to blame her sister but eventually takes accountability.
The experts are then introduced to help get the bar into better shape.
Mia shows the simple staff cocktails they can make quickly, like a tequila sunrise.
Jon wants to make the bar space-themed since many patrons have been to space.
Chef Tiffany Derry trains the kitchen on making pork sliders.
The stress test begins, and the bar is packed.
Serena tries to help, but she can’t work the bar or kitchen.
Soon the bar and kitchen are so backed up that most customers haven’t even had their orders taken.
The bar runs out of drinking glasses, and food tickets are up to thirty minutes, so Jon shuts down the test.
The next day Mia trains the bar staff on new signature drinks.
Chef Tiffany shows the kitchen staff how to make fish tacos.
Amanda tells Jon she is not used to getting praised.
Jon tells Serena being complimentary of her daughter will go a long way.
While all that’s going on, Jon Taffer and his crew are working on renovating the bar.
Because of its long history, Jon opted to keep the King’s Duck Inn name, even though it is a bit odd.
However, he did make some changes inside and add new equipment.
The bar staff makes drinks confidently during the relaunch.
The customers love the atmosphere, food, and beverages.
The team did much better than they did during the stress test and things seem to be looking up for Kings Duck Inn.
So was the KDI Bar Rescue episode a long-term success? Keep reading to learn what happened next and if it’s still open in 2024.
Kings Duck Inn Update - What Happened Next?
Now that we’ve recapped the Kings Duck Inn Bar Rescue episode, let’s talk about what happened after Jon Taffer and his crew reached orbital velocity and left Merritt Island, FL.
At the standard six-week check-in within with the Bar Rescue producers, things at the bar seemed to be looking up as sales had increased by a hefty $5,000 per week.
An extra $20,000 per month doesn’t hurt, right?
Unfortunately, personal circumstances would take a sad turn for Serena and the bar would not make it past a few years.
Is Kings Duck Inn still open after Bar Rescue?
As of April 2022, Kings Duck Inn appears to be closed after the owner unsuccessfully tried to sell the bar via an auction in 2021 (and then eventually successfully sold it in late 2022).
A recent review from March 2022 indicates that the bar is closed and it’s also marked as permanently closed on Google Reviews.
Serena Biscontini, the Kings Duck Inn owner that you saw on the Bar Rescue episode, initially tried to sell the bar due to personal reasons.
Her son was growing up, which is reason alone to wanted to spend more time with him.
However, there’s also a bit of sadness here – Serena’s sister passed away in 2019, which led to her also raising her 16-year old nephew.
As a result, she wanted to sell the bar to spend more time with them.
Originally, Serena just put up a for sale sign outside the bar.
However, a real estate agent saw the sign and convinced her to go with the auction approach instead.
The Kings Duck Inn auction was scheduled for February 19, 2021.
Unfortunately, I can’t find the Kings Duck Inn auction results, but I do know that it wasn’t succesful.
The latest piece of news that I can find about the auction is this post from Florida Today, which indicates that negotiations were ongoing.
I can’t find any record of the property being sold at the auction and it was listed for sale again in August 2021 for $1.6 million, which was six months after the auction was supposed to have happened.
The Google Street view picture also still shows a for sale sign from March 2021, which is another indication that the auction wasn’t successful:
The property was then listed on Loopnet again in May of 2022.
The listing was closed in September 2022 because the King’s Duck Inn property was finally sold to a new owner for $310,000.
Whether it was Serena or a new owner, however, it appears that the auction was not enough to keep the bar open.
Who bought King’s Duck Inn?
According to a public records search, MI Ventures Group LLC bought Kings Duck Inn for $310,000.
The sale closed on September 8th 2022, which ends the saga of Kings Duck Inn.
I’m not sure if the new owner will reopen the bar or use it for something else.
You can see the sale details in this public record:
Kings Duck Inn reviews
Before its closure, Kings Duck Inn have mediocre, but ok reviews, with a 3.5 star rating on Yelp and a 3.8 star rating on Google Reviews.
Here’s a sampling of the reviews that were written after the Kings Duck Inn Bar Rescue visit occurred.
Even before closing, it seems like Kings Duck Inn had issues with staying open and keeping irregular hours.
1 star Google review from April 2021:
Drove up at 10:30 tonight and saw the owner/bartender run and lock the front door but saw many people inside.
Guess they have their own schedule like it has been for years.
Maybe I should have called ahead and let them know that I have some good stuff on hand.
That way I could have been guaranteed a warm welcome. 👎🏻
4 star Google review from November 2021:
I’m not a Bar person but I do enjoy the food.
Food is really good and the service is as well.
Great wings and fish & chips.
1 star Google review from October 2021:
Super sketchy place.
We drove up at 7:30pm on Monday night and as soon as we pulled up the doors were locked by someone.
There were people in there and at the bar.
Super bizarre place and would not recommend or trust.
1 star Google review from April 2021:
Just went in as a first time customer and a last time customer.
Smells like cigarettes from the last. Stale and musty.
Fred the bartender has been there 11 years but her customer service is about five minutes of experience.
Took five minutes to say “Hi I’ll be right with you”should have been “ Hi I have never seen you before so let me take care of the customers that came in 10 minutes after you because I know what they are drinking”.
So if your not a bar fly that frequents this establishment don’t go here because they have already a clientele they serve.
What a shame in an economy struggling in the hospitality industry you would think customer service would more exceptional, but not here
1 star Yelp review from January 2020:
This place is a sh*t hole!!!
We paid listen to a song on the jukebox and they unplugged it.
So disappointing.
Terrible service and shitty food and drinks.
Beer was flat and warm.
Bar Rescue my ass.
More like bar euthanasia!!!
5 star Yelp review from June 2017 (before the episode aired on TV but after Taffer’s visit):
My husband and I stopped last night for a quick bite and to check out the changes after Bar Rescue had been.
I hadn’t been in quite some time but was pleased with the change in decor immediately.
It now sports a very fitting space theme and the comfort and appearance of the chairs and tables was appreciated.
I do hope they are waiting for some air conditioning parts though.
There are spots on the ceiling with cardboard taped over and a very large fan was quite noisy. I would hate to think those issues are permanent.
The food, though!
The food was so delicious!
Completely surprising to have meatloaf and mashed potatoes that incredible in a bar.
I had to taste everything on my husband’s plate.
I had the shrimp roll. The tarragon mayonnaise sauce was amazing.
My only complaint was it was served on a bed of kettle chips which got soggy as the mayo dripped. I will ask for a plate next time.
There will have to be a next time very soon!
It’s so exciting to have a tasty and reasonably priced bar in the neighborhood.
KDI is finally what I had hoped it would be the first time I went.
A clean and reasonably priced neighborhood joint with friendly service.
Unfortunately, while the Kings Duck Inn Bar Rescue changes seemed to start off well, the bar would eventually close because of personal issues.
If you want to see some other beach-focused Florida Bar Rescue episodes, check out these posts:
- Bamboo Beach Tiki Bar / Bamboo Beach Club update
- Sydney / Bluewater Oyster Bar update
- The Bridge update
- Bonny and Read’s / Toucan’s update
- Freaki Tiki’s / Frankie T’s update
- Cap’n Odie’s Lounge update
If you know anything about what happened to Kings Duck Inn after Bar Rescue, please let me know in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
More Information
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Last updated: 2023-03-05 10:54
Jon wanted to call this episode F*** A Duck but was turned down.
That’s just fowl, bro
It sold for $310,000 on 9/9/2022 to MI Ventures Group LLC. I got this through public records and am not sure if it is open or not.
Thanks for sharing! Could you please link me to where you found this? I can’t find it in Google. The site I found still shows the most recent sale as 2001, but it’s probably out of date.
Never mind I found it! Thanks for letting me know. I just updated the post.
Use to stop all the time on the 90’s and 2000’s after a roof job with my crew. Amazing food, good drinks and laid back atmosphere. It really rocked during the space center heyday. We would stop after work when I worked out there. Traffic was backed up for miles, so it was a good place for a beer, pool, food, juke box! We will miss the KDI. A lot of fond memories for me……
Those reviews were brutal. What’s with multiple reviews mentioning them locking the doors with people inside? The knucklehead mother and daughter team didn’t seem like they were going to make it for long, even after the remodel.
Boarded windows and repainted/re-roofed, but you can see still see remnants of the old sign from the highway. Building not currently occupied by a business. More later…