(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 5 | View All Season 5 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: September 18, 2016
The Bar's Original Name Was: Celebrities Sports Grill
The Victory Bar Address: 12013 5th St Yucaipa, CA 92399
Episode Recap
Celebrities Sports Grill, later renamed to The Victory Bar, was a Yucaipa, California bar that was featured on Season 5 of Bar Rescue.
Though the The Victory Bar Rescue episode aired in September 2016, the actual filming and visit from Jon Taffer took place in April 2016.
It was Season 5 Episode 4 and the episode name was “Antisocial Media”.
Celebrities Sports Grill, owned by Max and Ryke Zahir, is in Yucaipa, CA.
Yucaipa is a small city of about 51,000 people that’s located in the San Bernardino Valley, which is directly to the east of Los Angeles.
Max and Ryke are brothers and army veterans.
Sadly, in 2012, Ryke suffered an eye injury in Afghanistan.
Instead of going back into the service, Max chose to stay home with Ryke.
The brothers invested close to $500,000 each into Celebrities Sports Grill and saw success when it first opened.
In fact, they actually own two locations of the bar.
There’s the Celebrities Sports Grill in Yucaipa (which was featured on Bar Rescue) and then there’s also another Celebrities Sports Grill location in San Bernardino proper.
Max went viral on the internet after posting a video of him giving a homeless veteran food.
Twenty thousand dollars was raised for the homeless man.
It then came out that man was not a veteran.
Due to this, Celebrities Sports Grill gained a bad reputation.
The bar is now in severe debt, which is why the Celebrities Bar Rescue episode exists.
The brothers have considered cutting their losses and selling the bar, but no one has shown any curiosity about purchasing it.
Mixologist Rob Floyd and Chef Ryan Scott are with Jon Taffer in the SUV.
The three men agree the bar is boring and has no theme.
Sabrina is Celebrities Sports Grill’s manager.
The bar also employs three bartenders and one cook.
Customers have written negative reviews, which has caused Max to react poorly.
Jon Taffer brings the customers who wrote the negative comments to the bar along with their friends.
When the customers go into the bar, the staff is overwhelmed.
Patrons walk out after waiting close to an hour for a drink.
The owners comp several meals, and Max eventually loses his temper when a customer gives him feedback.
Jon Taffer goes into the bar. He wants the customers to continue giving Max their feedback.
I guess it’s some type of aversion therapy? Lol.
The negative feedback is causing Max to lose his temper.
Jon tells him to apologize before Jon will rescue the bar.
Max refuses to do so, and a fight almost breaks out between him and a customer.
Here’s a video that recaps the drama:
Jon returns the next day. Ryke stays home because he struggles with PTSD, so Max is at the bar alone.
Jon tells Max the cost of food is too high, and he has not supported his staff enough as they lack the training and tools they need to succeed.
The employees confide in Jon Taffer that the community thinks Max has an ego and has turned against him.
At this point in the Celebrities Bar Rescue episode, the staff are introduced to the experts.
Rob trains the staff on how to use a shaker. He fills the shakers with rice so they can listen to the beat.
The cooks are trained on a Sunday roast sandwich. The staff loves the taste and the low cost.
The stress test is geared for Max to work on resolving his issues with the community.
Even the mayor comes in for the stress test.
The bartenders immediately make mistakes while the kitchen starts strong.
Customers begin to leave after waiting too long for drinks.
Max is staying calm.
The bar is shut down, and Jon reveals he held an online poll asking if the town thinks he should save the bar.
Over 80% said yes despite the poor service, which shows that Celebrities might still have a chance if they can get things right.
As usual, Jon Taffer and his crew get to work renovating the bar. Because Celebrities doesn’t have a great reputation, Jon Taffer is for sure going to change the name.
When we see the changes, we learn that Jon Taffer has renamed the bar to The Victory Bar and Restaurant.
Trophies are now in the center of the bar, and there are two POS systems.
Customers enter the bar for the relaunch. Ryke comes for the relaunch and is pleasantly surprised.
The Victory Bar Update - What Happened Next?
Now that we’ve recapped the The Victory Bar Rescue episode, let’s talk about what happened to the bar after Jon Taffer and his crew left Yucaipa, CA.
Was it victorious? Or did the bar fade away like so many celebrities who are passed their prime.
Well, things started well.
Max raised over $20,000 for a veterans charity and had a ceremony at the bar around six weeks after Jon Taffer’s visit.
Unfortunately, that would pretty much be the high point of The Victory Bar.
Is The Victory Bar from Bar Rescue still open?
The Victory Bar closed in June 2016, which is three months before the episode even aired on TV (but about two months after the actual Celebrities Bar Rescue visit).
Given that the brothers were already thinking of selling the bar before the episode, it kind of seems like they just used the renovation as a chance to sell it.
As of 2023, old The Victory Bar Yucaipa, CA location seems to be occupied by a kids club named Hop In! Indoor Playground Cafe.
Here’s what the old Celebrities Yucaipa CA location looks like in the most recent picture from Google Maps street view so that you can explore the area:
However, as I mentioned above, the brothers also own another Celebrities bar location in San Bernardino.
As of 2023, that location is still open.
So while the Celebrities location that you saw get rebranded into The Victory Bar on Bar Rescue is permanently closed, there is still a Celebrities bar open owned by the brothers.
You can check out the Facebook page for that location here and the Yelp page here.
The Victory Bar reviews after Bar Rescue
At the time that The Victory Bar closed, it had a 3 star rating on its Yelp page.
Because it closed so quickly, there were only a few reviews written after Jon Taffer’s visit, most of which were negative.
Here are some examples…
1 star Yelp review from May 2016:
I heard Bar Rescue was here but what did they do other then change the sign which actually looks kinda cheesy.
The place is still a dump.
It’s dark and just feels yucky.
Food was bland, hardly anyone was in the place.
The whole vibe was just negative.
2 star Yelp review from April 2016:
Bar Rescue came to help the restaurant and renamed it The Victory.
This is no victory at all…
Ordered zucchini sticks and the batter kept falling apart.
Ordered the Baja burger and it was burnt, dry, and pretty tasteless…
My boyfriend order the Champion burger which was okay.
Another thing..
The server didn’t ask how we wanted our burgers done so when we got them mine was burnt on the outside and pretty raw inside while my boyfriend’s burger was well done.
I will say though that the curly fries were pretty good.
The vibe here isn’t that great either.
Some of the servers seem unhappy and lost.
Had high hopes for this place since this is the third time the name has changed and they were just on Bar Rescue.
Hopefully they figure something out because the location is pretty cool and they have an arcade for kids and pool tables.
All in all, the food isn’t worth the price.
1 star Yelp review from April 2016:
My wife and I decided to try out this restaurant without doing our due diligence first and that was our first mistake.
Our second mistake was seeing an empty dining room on a Saturday night and not turning around immediately and walking out.
To be honest, I am not even sure where to begin.
Really too many things went wrong with our meal to list here and any time we were actually able to find our waitress to remedy the situation, it just didn’t matter anymore because we were not going to eat the food anyway.
The service was awful and the food was even worse.
And even when we conveyed this to our waitress she only offered an insincere sorry and dropped the check.
No manager stopped by our table, no discount or dessert was offered.
We kept joking to each other that any minute someone was going to jump out from behind the curtain and explain that we were on a practical joke show.
That never happened.
I heard that the TV show Bar Rescue took them under their wing and they are going to try and fix things.
I am afraid that the damage has already been done.
I, for one, am never going back.
Overall, Jon Taffer was not able to save Celebrities as it closed very shortly after his visit.
If you want to see some other nearby California Bar Rescue updates, you can check out my updates for Derby’s / The Wheel House in Hemet, Par Bar / Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant in Canyon Lake, JJ’s Sports Bar / JJ’s Sports Cafe in Highland, and Rack’s Billiards / Angel’s Sports Bar in Corona.
Jon Taffer also recently visited a nearby bar in Season 8 – Papa Joe’s / Layla’s Pizza Pub in Moreno Valley.
I also have a post that lists all 49+ Bar Rescue episodes in California as of 2024.
And if you want to share your thoughts on the Victory Bar episode, you can do so using the comments section below.
Thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/celebrities-sports-grill-yucaipahttps://www.facebook.com/pages/Celebrities-Sports-Grill/1189427161087347
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Last updated: 2023-04-29 06:21
Looks like that address is occupied by an business called “LOL Kids Club”. Not 100% sure, as I don’t live in that state . It also says “off market” on Zillow. But it was obvious that this was a case to make the location more spiraling for selling .
This is the 2nd rescue in a row I’ve watched where Jon caved to the owners even though he said he wouldn’t rescue their bar if they didn’t do as he asked.
He was supposed to apologize to the customers and didn’t and Jon still renovated.
Didn’t think it would last.
Remember the black wormy sludge beneath MT Bottle? John neither tested nor revealed results if he did test, and that was the most dangerous and disgusting on BR and that’s saying something. Taffer does and says stuff that’s BS nearly every episode, it’s easy to make yourself look like a hero on reality TV, people believe waAaay to much positive stuff about Taffer and this show. Overall, he seems like an emotional and sincere man, however, reality tv is far more fake than “reality.”
It isn’t intended to be true (or “reality”) just entertaining. I saw one reality show that was so fake, that I couldn’t watch another episode. Another reality show was real enough, until I saw in the credits, “… some scenes have been re-created…” WHAT?!??! I have often wondered how the folks in the bar could miss the “surveillance cameras,” especially when they are laughably at eye-level. I just saw one BR episode with a couple men crying their eyes out on camera… when the camera was at eye-level.
It’s a bounce house indoor playground for kids now called LOL. That place makes money hand over fist haha
It’s a kids club now I just looked
Glad to here it closed that guy was a big asswipe