(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 5 | View All Season 5 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: February 26, 2017
The Bar's Original Name Was: Summit House Grill And Tap
Summit House Address: 14285 W Colfax Ave Lakewood, CO 80401
Episode Recap
Summit House Grill and Tap was a Lakewood, Colorado bar that was featured on Season 5 of Bar Rescue.
Though the Summit House Bar Rescue episode aired in February 2017, the actual filming and visit from Jon Taffer took place a couple of months before that in the summer of 2016.
It was Season 5 Episode 15 and the episode name was “I Know What You Did Last Summit”.
Summit House Grill and Tap is in Lakewood, CO.
If you’re not familiar with Lakewood, CO, it’s a suburb of Denver with a population of around 155,000 people.
It’s located to the west of Denver, right next to the Rocky Mountains.
The bar was opened in 2014 by Alexia and Josh Lubliner, which means they’ve only had it for about 2.5 years at the time of the Summit House Bar Rescue visit.
Josh was a financial manager but followed his dreams of opening a bar with his wife’s support.
Alexia worked in information technology and loved going to work.
She quit her career to help Josh with the bar.
Josh did an interview with The Denver Post in 2015 about opening the bar, which is worth a read if you want some more backstory.
In the beginning, Summit House Grill and Tap was very successful.
Nicole was hired as a manager because the owners wanted to spend more time away from the bar.
The management began to bring down the bar, so Josh had to step back in.
He started drinking alcohol to deal with the stress of the failing bar.
At the time of the Summit House Bar Rescue episode, the bar is reportedly losing $4.5 per month with a total debt load of $750k. So yeah…that’s a big hole to climb out of.
Travis is one bartender who thinks it is okay to drink at the bar because Josh does.
The excessive drinking is taking a toll on Josh’s marriage and the bar.
Josh called Bar Rescue because Alexia believed he had given up on trying.
Alexia meets with Jon Taffer in the SUV outside the bar.
She confides in Jon that she and Josh borrowed a lot of money from her parents to open the bar. Yikes – that’s not a good situation.
Jon tells Alexia that due to city ordinances, he cannot do anything to the exterior of Summit House Grill and Tap.
Josh begins cursing at the customers and physically assaulting his staff at the bar.
When Alexia tries to calm down her husband, he begins to blame everything on her.
To shut him up, Jon Taffer dumps Josh’s drink on his head, which is a pretty dramatic moment.
Travis kicks Josh out of the bar, and Jon Taffer leaves.
Jon Taffer returns the next day for a staff meeting.
Alexia tells Jon that her husband scolds his employees and flirts with women when he drinks at the bar.
Nicole also tells Jon that instead of managing the bar, her job consists of babysitting Josh.
The bar lost money the last weekend; over $2,000 was poured, but less than $1,000 was in the till.
That’s crazy! No wonder the bar is losing $4,500 per month if it’s essentially giving away $1,000 in liquor on a weekend.
Josh is forced to breathe into a breathalyzer and passes.
Jon tells Josh that if he has one drink, he is leaving.
Mixologist Rob Floyd and Chef Michael Ferrara then join Jon Taffer to help save the bar.
Rob teaches the staff the basics of customer service.
After practicing, the employees show they have a lot to learn.
Michael shoes the cooks in the kitchen how to make a French onion mac and cheese dish.
The goal of the stress test is to provide excellent service and get food out quickly.
Immediately the kitchen falls behind on orders.
Nicole does an excellent job providing service, but her team is not keeping up.
Food is being served to the wrong tables.
Josh is serving drinks, but none of the customers have paid for them.
The test is shut down after being mostly a failure.
When Jon Taffer asks Josh if he has drunk alcohol, Josh says he has not had a drink in two days.
Josh tells Jon he is afraid of failing.
Rob teaches the bartenders a drink called the Hot Choddy.
While Rob is working with the bartenders, Michael trains the cooks on new recipes like the Summit Short Ribs.
And while all that is going on, Jon Taffer and his crew are hard at work renovating the bar.
Unlike a lot of other bars from the show, Jon Taffer opted to keep the original name instead of changing it.
However, the inside of the bar has been changed.
The bar has been gifted a subscription to Taffer Virtual Training.
Nicole steps up as a manager during the relaunch.
Josh has a meltdown and reverts to his old ways but is helped through it.
In the end, the night is a success.
So was the Bar Rescue Summit House Grill and Tap visit a long-term success? Keep reading to learn what happened next and if this Lakewood, Colorado bar is still open in 2024
Summit House Update - What Happened Next?
Now that we’ve recapped the Summit House Bar Rescue visit, let’s talk about what happened after Jon Taffer and his crew left Lakewood, CO.
First, let’s talk about Josh.
At the six-week check-in with the Bar Rescue producers, we learn that he has stayed sober, which is great to hear.
Sales are also up since Jon Taffer’s visit.
Unfortunately, the good situation would not last long…
Is Summit House from Bar Rescue still open?
Summit House closed in July 2018, which was around two years after Jon Taffer originally visited the bar.
The bar was originally listed as closed for renovations, but it never reopened and remains permanently closed.
I’m not sure why it was never able to reopen, but I’m guessing the debt played a pretty big role.
For a time, the old Summit House Lakewood, CO location was occupied by a new bar called Hops Restaurant Bar and Brewery.
However, that bar seems to also be closed for now.
I’m not sure what will replace it but I’ll edit our Summit House Bar Rescue update once I know.
And if you know anything, please let me know in the comments.
As of early 2023, I can’t see any evidence of a new bar moving in.
Here’s a Google Maps street view embed that shows the location, though the picture hasn’t been updated in a while:
At the time that Summit House closed, its reviews weren’t that great as it had just a 3 star rating on Yelp and a 3.6 star rating on Google Reviews.
Here’s a sampling of a few of the reviews that were written after the visit from Jon Taffer…
4 star review from April 2018:
My bf and i just moved to Lakewood from NC and went here.
We had apps and beers.
Saw the show on bar rescue and decided to check it out.
The nachos were awesome and so were the jalapeño poppers (best I’ve had).
Definitely gonna go back.
Staff was friendly and fast.
1 star Yelp review from April 2018:
We are very disappointed with the quality of the food at Summit House.
We used like it ,but this last visit the food quality was very poor.
Unless they change, I don’t think we will come back.
As a side note, the service was great
2 star review from November 2016:
I was there on a work trip with some co-workers, it was a weeknight, and the place was pretty average.
While we were waiting the owner came by, and chatted with us for a few minutes, and seemed like a nice enough guy.
Later during the meal we were saying how we thought the place could use a Bar Rescue.
It turns out, they had already been rescued.
Of the food we ordered, there was nothing that was out of the ordinary.
The chicken in the salad that I ordered, I’m pretty sure were frozen chicken fingers.
Whenever I travel, I try to choose local places, this wasn’t as good as the chain place we went to the night before.
1 star review from August 2016:
We were there last night for the ” bar rescue” relaunch and we will never ever go back.
This was one of the worst displays at pretending to know how to run a bar
Service was TERRIBLE!!!!
The saddest thing to watch was this show try to create this bar that was being successful and it was the most FAKE thing I have ever seen in my entire life!!!!
This bar is so screwed.
Crappy service with Crappy drinks
If I could give less than 1 star I would
Do not make the mistake of stepping foot in there!!!
Overall, with its generally negative reviews, it’s no surprise that Summit House closed.
Still, it did survive for two years, so the rescue wasn’t a total failure.
What happened to Josh and Alexia Lubliner?
As of 2022, Josh and Alexia Lubliner seem to have left Lakewood, CO and moved to Reno, NV.
Alexia seems to be working as a Technical Support Specialist again (which was her original career before opening the bar).
I’m not sure about Josh.
The couple are still married as far as I can tell, but I don’t like digging into people’s personal lives.
I wish them the best!
If you want to see some other nearby Colorado Bar Rescue episodes, you can check out my updates for Malloy’s / GI Jodi’s in Littleton, Zanzibar / Solids and Stripes in Denver, and St8 Pub / Downstairs Bar in Englewood.
Thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/summit-house-grill-and-tap-lakewood-2What did you think about the episode? I'd love it if you shared your thoughts on the episode in the comments below!
You can also click the buttons below to share this post!
And don't forget to check out all of the other Bar Rescue updates.
Last updated: 2023-02-21 09:40
Thanks for the update. I’m often at Colorado Mills, the mall across the street, and was searching to find out what the abandoned building once was.
I was hoping to get the recipe for French onion, soup and macaroni and cheese, definitely a good item and I would love to try some. John Taffer is one hell of a person to know how to uplift the entire employees to help them gather a lot of gratitude for what they do.
How do so many get such cheesy sleeve tattoos on arms? It’s like getting a members only jacket or bad bell bottoms permanently attached to yer body. Not all tats are created equal, way too many poseurs maaaan.
So many owners drink so much. Morphine is far superior as an all day every day self medication. ACHTUNG***Under care of an MD for medical purposes only****END OF ACHTUNG ZONE, thank u drive thru
But seriously, if Taffer dumped a beer on my balzak, he’s be needing dentures and I’d be posting bail. Some of his overt the top throwing stuff and insulting people is straight up bully excess. People forgive because of his stated cheesy Jerry springer “breakthrough” epiphany moments that are fake as it gets. Overall, I think he’s a decent man, but I’m not playing internet tough guy, I’d be throwing my elbow until his chiclets were on the ground if dumped a beer on me. His security just off camera would say “damn boss, you toofless, that guy roofless.” And I’m not a fighter, I’m far too pretty for that.
Marriage status needs to be filed under nunya damn business.
Good luck with that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dj65pDJUDI&ab_channel=Wally%26Tony
You tuber shows status of restaurant from a couple years back.
That was an interesting video, thanks. Looks like construction definitely was under way for a new restaurant or something, most of Taffer’s decor was gone. Hope Josh got his crap together after they closed, he was a real dick of a drunk.
In March, 2020, the Lubliners filed for bankruptcy in Nevada. That’s a shame