(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 9 | View All Season 9 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: March 23, 2025
The Bar's Original Name Was: Daq Shack
Royal Street MKE Address: 4191 N Green Bay Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53209
Episode Recap
Daq Shack, later renamed to Royal Street MKE, was a Milwaukee, Wisconsin bar that was featured on Season 9 of Bar Rescue.
Though the Royal Street Bar Rescue episode aired in March 2025, the actual filming and visit from Bar Rescue took place before that in September 2024.
It was Season 9 Episode 27 and the episode name was “I’m a F’n Bar Guy! I’m a F’n Bar Girl!”.
In this episode, Bar Rescue is back in Wisconsin.
That makes it the fourth time this set/season (and the sixth time overall).
The show is in town to rescue Daq Shack, a New Orleans-inspired daquiri bar located in Milwaukee.
The bar is owned by two lifelong Milwaukeeans, a husband and wife duo named Michael and India Guster.
To learn about making frozen drinks, the couple went to New Orleans and Las Vegas.
They then decided that people in the freezing area of Wisconsin needed to embrace these frozen drinks, so they opened up the bar back in 2021.
When Bar Rescue visited, the couple was supposedly losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is why they needed help from Taffer.
To save the bar, he decided to put in a new concept alongside the other renovations.
As part of this, Jon Taffer changed the name from Daq Shack to Royal Street MKE.
Despite the name change, the bar still keeps the same New Orleans inspiration, with a tagline of “New Orleans | Daquiris | Grill”.
The show also added the following CTAs to the bar’s windows:
- Famous daquiris
- New Orleans cuisine
- Big easy vibes
- Po’boys
- Classic cocktails
Jon Taffer chose the name because Royal Street is a famous street down in New Orleans, so it keeps with the same theme.
When the family sees the new bar, they literally cry with tears of joy, which is great to see.
The bar still has all of the daquiri machines, but the interior looks a lot better.
The design aesthetic also fits the New Orleans concept a lot more than the original design, at least in my opinion.
So – was the Daq Shack Bar Rescue episode a long-term success?
Keep reading my update to learn what happened next and if this Milwaukee bar is still open in 2025.
Royal Street MKE Update - What Happened Next?
Now, let’s get into how the bar is doing after Taffer and the crew left Milwaukee.
Note – this update is a work in progress because Bar Rescue aired a different episode than the one that was in the preview video. I will make it more detailed when I have time – I just wanted to get something up for now.
Is Royal Street MKE still open?
As of my most recent check, Royal Street MKE is still open and serving customers in Milwaukee.
While they still use the Daq Shack name on their Facebook page and website, they seem to be continuing to use the Royal Street MKE concept despite that.
For example, the Facebook cover page shows the Royal Street branding.
The bar’s website also calls it Royal Street MKE (though the domain name is still Daq Shack MKE for now).
The bar also posted about hiring new bartenders and servers in March 2025, so hopefully that’s a sign that it’s doing well.
Here’s what the bar’s location looks like in the most recent picture from Google Maps street view…
It hasn’t been updated since June 2024 so it still shows the Daq Shack concept.
I’m mainly just including it so that you can explore the area around the bar.
Royal Street MKE reviews after Bar Rescue
Next, let’s take a look at some reviews of the bar from after the show’s visit.
Overall, the bar has a 4.6 star rating on its Google listing, which is quite good.
However, that number includes reviews from both before and after the Bar Rescue visit.
As always on this site, I try to exclusively focus on reviews from after the show.
In general, I would say that all of the recent reviews are quite positive.
Pretty much all of them are 5 stars, with just one 4 star mixed in.
So, it seems like people are loving the Royal Street MKE concept (though the reviews when it was Daq Shack were already pretty good).
Here’s a sampling of a few reviews that I found…
5 star review that mentions the renovation:
Two 5 star reviews:
5 star review with owner response:
4 star review with small complaint about menu changes:
Final thoughts on the episode
Overall, the bar seems to have embraced the changes from Bar Rescue and continues to use the Royal Street MKE branding, despite still having Daq Shack on some online profiles.
Reviews for the bar also seem quite good, though they were also positive back when it was Daq Shack.
Given the positive reviews, I hope that this one can stay open for a long time (which would go a ways toward improving Taffer’s success rate in Milwaukee).
That wraps up my Royal Street Bar Rescue update.
If you want to see some other Wisconsin episodes from the show, you also might be interested in my updates for Blue Line Tavern / Top Shelf in Fond du Lac, Interlude II in Kenosha, Nick’s House / Y-Not III in Milwaukee, Harbor Lights in Sheboygan, and Packy’s Pub / Campbell’s Irish Pub in Milwaukee.
If you want to share your thoughts on the episode, please do so using the comments below.
As always – thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/daq-shack-mke-milwaukeehttps://www.facebook.com/RoyalStreetMKE/
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Last updated: 2025-03-31 08:45
Crazy that bar rescue would go in with owners that have a nearly $20,000 unpaid bill for work done on their house. Glad that people think it’s all right to not pay their obligations while operating a business!