(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 9 | View All Season 9 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: March 16, 2025
The Bar's Original Name Was: Pete's Cutting Board & Reuben Tavern
Pete's Butcher Block Bar Address: 50225 Gratiot Ave, Chesterfield, MI 48051
Episode Recap
Pete’s Cutting Board & Reuben Tavern, later renamed to Pete’s Butcher Block Bar, was a Chesterfield, Michigan bar that was featured on Season 9 of Bar Rescue.
Though the Pete’s Cutting Board Bar Rescue episode aired in March 2025, the actual filming and visit from Bar Rescue took place before that in May 2024.
It was Season 9 Episode 26 and the episode name was “Pete’s Ruined Tavern”.
In this episode, Bar Rescue is back in Michigan, which marks the show’s fifth visit to the state.
For some reason, the episode’s description says that the bar is in Chesterfield, Minnesota.
However, they’re actually in Chesterfield, Michigan.
Here’s a screenshot that I took before the episode aired (maybe they’ll correct it later).
I wonder if the person who wrote the description just doesn’t understand that “MI” stands for Michigan and not Minnesota.
Either way, the rescue in this episode was not handled by Jon Taffer.
Instead, Chef Jason Santos stepped in to replace Taffer in the episode and rescue the bar.
Jason is in town to try to help Pete’s Cutting Board Sports Bar & Reuben Tavern…which is a bit of a mouthful of a name haha.
When the spies enter the bar, they ask their server to recommend them a cocktail.
For some reason, she recommended a margarita to two guys, which is a bit of an odd choice.
While that’s happening, the experts are watching Pete, the owner, get progressively drunker.
A Bar Rescue owner drinking while at the bar? That’s a first haha.
They even have a little drink counter going while they count, eventually getting up to 7+ drinks.
After getting their drinks, the spies are not impressed with their drinks, finding them too sweet and fruity.
They then move on to food, getting the cajun steak bites, a Reuben (true to the bar’s name), and onion rings.
When they watch the chef cook the Reuben, he’s steaming the corned beef under deli paper on the flat top, which is a bit of an odd choice.
When the chef finishes, he just puts it on a rack and rings a bell.
After the spies finally get their food, they are not impressed.
The “famous Reuben” is basic and the pork in another dish tastes off.
That’s it for the recap so far – as always, I’m writing this a day before the episode aired on TV.
However, I’ll try to find time to come back and make this a little more detailed in the future.
For now, let’s talk about the changes that Jason Santos put in during the episode.
As part of the rescue, Jason Santos decided to slightly change the bar’s name.
He changed it from Pete’s Cutting Board & Reuben Tavern to Pete’s Butcher Block Bar: Famous Sandwiches and Cocktails.
Honestly…that’s kind of the same name haha.
I’m not sure if it was worth changing it since “butcher block” is pretty much the same as “cutting board”.
I guess Jason just wanted to leave his mark on the bar.
Either way, I’m guessing most people will just call it “Pete’s”, so there’s probably no functional change in the name.
As part of the rescue, the bar got a new sign, along with all the other usual Bar Rescue renovation items.
So – was the Pete’s Butcher Block Bar Rescue visit a long-term success?
Keep reading to learn what happened next and if this Michigan bar is still open in 2025.
Pete's Butcher Block Bar Update - What Happened Next?
Now that I’ve recapped the episode, let’s talk about how the bar is doing after Jason Santos and the Bar Rescue crew left town.
I’ll start by talking about whether the bar is still open, which is probably the first question on your mind.
Then, I’ll take a look at some reviews from after the Bar Rescue episode to help you see if they stuck with Jason’s changes.
Let’s get into it…
Is Pete’s Butcher Block Bar still open?
As of my most recent check, Pete’s Butcher Block Bar is still open and serving customers in Chesterfield, Michigan.
However, it’s hard for me to tell whether they’re using the Pete’s Butcher Block Bar name or the original Pete’s Cutting Board name.
On social media, the bar’s profiles are still listed as Pete’s Cutting Board.
It’s also listed as Pete’s Cutting Board on Google and Yelp.
However, if I look at recent pictures from customers, I do see a picture of a menu that still uses the Pete’s Butcher Block name as recently as early March 2025, so I can’t confirm they’ve ditched the name.
The bar’s posts on Facebook also all seem to refer to it as Pete’s Butcher Block Bar.
For example, here’s a Facebook post from three days before the episode aired that advertises it as “Pete’s Butcher Block Bar”, despite the name of the Facebook page being “Pete’s Cutting Board Sports Bar & Grill”.
So, despite not having updated their profiles, I think they’ve kept the Jason Santos concept.
I will update this when I have more information.
If you live in the area, please leave a comment below with whatever insights you can share.
In general, the bar is very active on its new Facebook page, regularly posting about specials (though not as often about events).
For example, they offer weekly drink specials, as advertised in this post:
Here’s what the Pete’s Butcher Block location looks like in the most recent picture from Google Maps street view.
It hasn’t been updated since 2023 so I’m mainly just including it so that you can explore the area around the bar.
Pete’s Butcher Block reviews after Bar Rescue
Now, let’s take a look at some reviews for the bar from after the episode.
As I mentioned above, the bar is listed as Pete’s Cutting Board on both Google and Yelp.
Overall, it has a 4.2 star rating on 385+ Google reviews and a 3.9 star rating on 27+ Yelp reviews.
However, most of those reviews were written before the episode, including all of the Yelp reviews.
As always, I try to only look at reviews that were written after Bar Rescue.
When looking at those recent reviews on Google, I would say that they’re mostly positive, though still mixed.
There are definitely still negative reviews mixed in, but I think they’re looking a bit better than before.
Here’s a sampling of a few customer reviews I found that were written after the visit from Jason Santos and Bar Rescue…
Two 5-star reviews from 2025:
1 star review that mentions the Bar Rescue renovations:
4 star review that mentions the show:
5 star review from 2024:
2 star review from 2024:
Two 5 star reviews from 2024:
5 star review from 2024:
There are also a lot of people who rated the bar without leaving a text review.
In fact, I’d say more people have done that than a lot of the other bars from the show. I’m not sure why…
Final thoughts on the episode
Overall, I think that the bar is continuing to use the Pete’s Butcher Block name, though I’m not 100% sure because it doesn’t seem like they’ve updated any of their online profiles.
When looking at recent reviews, they seem to be a bit more positive than before, so I hope that this one can be a long-term success.
That wraps up my update for Pete’s Butcher Block.
If you want to see some other Michigan bars that were featured on the show, you also might be interested in my updates for The Arena in Ann Arbor, Jazz Katz / Backbeat Piano Bar in Southfield, Chix on Dix / Power Strip in Detroit, and Proving Ground / The Hooch in Dearborn Heights.
And if you want to share your thoughts on the episode, you can do so using the comments section below.
As always, thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/petes-cutting-board-chesterfieldhttps://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100039993355913
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Last updated: 2025-03-17 08:25
Jason was actually pretty good IMO. He’s not as extreme as Jon which is good because he’s not Jon, and it didn’t look like he was playing a character which was definitely true for Spike and had been an issue with Phil and Dustin.
March 30 episode description reads “Holly, Minnesota” when it’s obviously Holly, Michigan (Backroads Bar & Grill). There is no Holly, Minnesota.
Whoever writes their descriptions needs to chat with their elementary school teacher re: MI vs MN, lol.
Yeah it’s pretty wild that such a big company is this sloppy! Seems like they just let some intern write the descriptions without any oversight.