Shattered Bar Rescue Update (Eliphino) – Las Vegas – Still Open in 2024?

Is Shattered Bar still open today?

Status: >> CLOSED <<
(keep reading to learn what happened)

Season: 6 | View All Season 6 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: April 28, 2019
The Bar's Original Name Was: Eliphino
Shattered Bar Address: 3246 E Desert Inn Rd Las Vegas, NV 89121

Shattered Bar Rescue Update (Eliphino)

Episode Recap

Eliphino, later renamed to Shattered Bar, was a Las Vegas, Nevada bar that was featured on Season 6 of Bar Rescue.

Though the Shattered Bar Rescue episode aired in April 2019, the actual filming and visit from Jon Taffer took place before that.

It was Season 6 Episode 33 and the episode name was “Un-Civil War”.

Eliphino is in Las Vegas, NV.

The owner, John McDonald, says he knows his bar is a dive bar. In fact, the full name is Eliphino Dive and Dine.

Eliphino bar owner

The name comes from a joke: What do you get when you merge an elephant and rhino? Eliphino.

He is proud of the bar’s name, but Jon Taffer won’t keep it around for too long (spoiler alert).

Casey, John’s friend, managed Eliphino but quit. The bar is in disrepair.

The ice machine is just a cooler filled with bagged ice, and they only use a few of their many beer taps.

The bar and the kitchen were too expensive for John to run, so he leased the kitchen out.

Leasing the kitchen was a bad idea as the kitchen isn’t open currently.

The staff is concerned because they think John is doing too much.

Casey quit the bar because John was not open to listening to any new ideas. 

All of these issues are why the Eliphino Bar Rescue episode exists.

Casey comes with Jon Taffer to do the recon at Eliphino.

Jon doesn’t understand the name of the bar, which makes sense to me.

Expert mixologist Derek Turner goes into Eliphino to spy.

Derek orders a Long Island Iced Tea, which he compares to formaldehyde.

Since John leased the kitchen out, it has never been in operation. 

To find out the problem with the bar, Jon and Casey confront John.

He says that since Casey left Eliphino, it has been challenging, and he apologizes for the way he acted.

Jon Taffer asks John how often he acts belligerently, and John says it is often.

Casey Eliphino bar

Casey and Jon Taffer want to help John figure out the bar’s problems and fix them. 

The staff tells Jon Taffer that there is no kitchen is an issue and is a reason they are failing.

John, the Eliphino owner, promises to change.

Jon Taffer reminds him that he will lose everything he has if he doesn’t change.

To get things going on the right track, Derek shows the bartenders how to make a drink called the El Diablo. 

During the stress test, many of the drinks need to be tossed out due to inconsistency.

Angie, one of the bartenders, is the only one who stays consistent at the bar.

Lee Lee, another staff member, is sent home by the owner for having a poor attitude.

However, Lee Lee eventually comes back the next day.

Derek explains to the bartenders that you first experience a cocktail with your eyes, nose, and mouth.

Basically, they need to get everything right about the presentation.

To solve the food problem at the bar, Jon Taffer plans to have food trucks come to the restaurant. 

Yasmina, the leaseholder for the kitchen, talks to Jon and says the kitchen was nonoperational when she leased it.

Jon Taffer then reminds her she hired the kitchen as is.

There is an argument as Jon tries to find out the truth.

The lease reads that the kitchen was supposed to be in working order, which it was not.

Yasmina and John end their business relationship because of the dispute.

While all of that is going on, Jon Taffer and his crew get to work on renovating the bar.

As part of that, Jon Taffer ditches the confusing Eliphino name and changes it to The Shattered Bar.

Jon has chosen this name because John’s dreams are being shattered too often.

Ouch! That doesn’t seem very uplifting to me.

The bar now has soda guns.

The kitchen has been fixed, and a pizza box has been added.

Everyone is happy with the bar at the relaunch. 

So was the Eliphino Bar Rescue visit a long-term success? Keep reading to learn what happened next and if this Las Vegas bar is still open in 2024.

Shattered Bar Update - What Happened Next?

Now that we’ve recapped the Shattered Bar Rescue episode, let’s talk about what happened after Jon Taffer and his crew left Sin City.

At the six-week check-in with the Bar Rescue producers, things seem to be going well for The Shattered Bar.

John reported that sales were up by more than 30% and he was continuing to use the name from Jon Taffer at the time.

Unfortunately, things would not last, and this is a rather unsatisfying Bar Rescue update.

Is Shattered Bar from Bar Rescue still open?

The Shattered Bar closed in October 2018, which was six months before the Shattered Bar Rescue episode aired on TV.

The actual visit from Jon Taffer happened almost a year and a half before the episode aired on TV, which explains how it closed so long before the episode aired.

Here’s a Facebook post from the owner about the closure, which was posted on October 26, 2018:

Hi guys. John here.

Needed to take a little time to myself.

In case you haven’t heard, the bar closed.

Could have been a good transition but kinda got screwed.

But I don’t want to focus on the negative.

It is what it is.

I’m not going to give those people any power.

They may have been able to knock me down but they will not be able to stop me from getting back up.

This is a transition period and not an end.

I don’t know what is next, yet.

But in starting to work on it already.

The stage’s Shattered sign is safely in my house.

It will reign again.

Here’s a screenshot of the Facebook post, in case it gets deleted:

Shattered bar closed on Facebook

John McDonald, the Shattered Bar owner, seems really unhappy that the episode took so long to air.

I guess he did the show specifically for the promotion, but he was never able to benefit from it because the show took so long to get on the air.

Here’s part of a lengthy Facebook post that he wrote at the time of the Eliphino Bar Rescue episode (which was months after the bar closed):

For reference, our Bar Rescue episode was filmed almost a year and a half before airing today.

I was told, yet not promised, that it would be on in about 6-10 weeks.

I did the show and opened myself to ridicule, humiliation and misrepresentation in exchange for the publicity which I hoped would increase foot traffic.

Because the show never aired, until after it could have helped, all the time, effort and stress that I and the girls endured for Bar Rescue was a complete waste.

Dangling false hope in front of people in troubled times is cruel.

In my opinion, Bar Rescue takes advantage of people’s struggles for their own profit.

Bar Rescue did not leave us “Set Up for Success”.

If you could have seen how much time went into being on that show and the mess they left, you would understand.

Here’s a screenshot of the full Facebook post:

Shattered bar Facebook post

John just generally seems really happy with the experience, as he’s written other posts on how he felt that the Bar Rescue producers edited the episode in a misleading way.

With that being said, John still does take responsibility for the bar’s failure.

Overall, this one is pretty unsatisfying because we never really got a chance to see if the changes from Jon Taffer would work.

For a time, the old Shattered Bar Las Vegas location is occupied by a new bar called GravyTrain Saloon.

However, it seems like that bar is also closed now as of 2022. I’m not sure if a new business has moved in yet.

A Google Maps shot from December 2021 seems to still show the property as being empty:

Shattered bar empty after Bar Rescue

If anything changes, I’ll be sure to update the post.

If you want to see some other nearby Las Vegas Bar Rescue episodes, you can check out my updates for La Casona Bar and Grill, Badlands Saloon, and The Valley Saloon / Barley Pop’s.

Thanks for reading!


More Information

https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-shattered-bar-eliphino-dive-and-dine-las-vegas
https://www.facebook.com/ShatteredBar/


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Last updated: 2023-03-07 06:39

10 thoughts on “Shattered Bar Rescue Update (Eliphino) – Las Vegas – Still Open in 2024?”

All comments are the sole opinion of the commenter and are not endorsed by RealityTVUpdates.

  1. Another slick owner that’s full of it…. crying and whining that he didn’t get his way while all along his ploy was to use the Bar Rescue show as an advertisement campaign just to sell his establishment….after Taffer and company got through fixing his crappy bar….and sorry, he was “set up for success”…. it was his problem he couldn’t make it succeed…

    Reply
  2. This guy knows about as much running/owning a bar as I do about astrophysics and distant galactic civilizations. He seemed to be whiny and juvenile-blaming others for his screw-ups. And the blank-up with the kitchen?! Damn! Well…he’s out on his arse now. In these situations, it’s the employees I feel badly for. When the owner is subpar, the employees are the ones who pay. I do hope they found Better paying jobs elsewhere.

    Reply
  3. I agree with all the comments. He needed to do some marketing. We have many great local bands. He could have jazz week,disco week, country week, rock week or all month to get a following. He has a wishbone. GOD gave him a back bone. He should use it!

    Reply
  4. He had one good bartender, she should LEAD, its a TEAM! Get on board or go home!!

    the bartender’s that walked out……..should have been replaced,
    they wanted the owner do do all the work but the girls couldn’t take what the Bar rescue was telling them to do… wtf? NEXT!!!!

    doesn’t matter what the bartenders look like CAN THEY DO THE JOB?
    if they can’t make drinks and keep the place hopping

    above all the owner is in charge and he needed a plan and stick with it

    pick a better name for the tavern! JACKSPOT TAVERN

    Reply
  5. I just watched the episode this morning. What a whining brat. Bar Rescue gives you some much needed tools, for free mind you. You, the owner, are left with the responsibility to use those tools.

    Reply
  6. Just saw this one for the second time. I just read John’s posts about the episode not airing soon after the reno.
    He says he wanted the episode to increase sales.
    That’s ridiculous. The complete renovation & improvements in every area are their own draw. Word of mouth & constantly great customer experiences drive the business.
    TV episodes are a perk but a bar has to be able to survive on its own, especially with a complete $100,000 remake and new product offerings.
    Too bad on this one.
    Too many bars owners expect Taffer to make their profit for them, without continuing the new menus & policies that were handed to them by experts.

    Reply
  7. He said the show was edited to portray him negatively and they subjected him to humiliation and misrepresentation. Then he blames the show for not airing soon enough. Who would want that show aired if it came across as falsely negative? And how would that be a benefit to any business, especially a hospitality business?

    Reply

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