(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 2 | View All Season 2 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: September 9, 2012
The Bar's Original Name Was: Weber's Place
Weber's Rum Bar and Grill Address: 19312 Vanowen St Reseda, CA 91335
Episode Recap
Weber’s Place, later renamed Weber’s Rum Bar and Grill, was a Reseda, California bar featured on Season 2 of Bar Rescue.
Though the Weber’s Bar and Grill Bar Rescue episode aired in September 2012, the actual filming and visit from Jon Taffer took place before that.
It was Bar Rescue Season 2 Episode 7 and the episode name was “Weber’s of Lies”.
Weber’s Place is located in Reseda, California, and is owned by Kervin Cinton.
He used his life savings to open the bar in 2007, which is around five years before Weber’s Place appeared on Bar Rescue.
Unfortunately, Weber’s Place struggles to compete with Hollywood Bars.
The bar has no identity and looks like a “gentleman’s club”.
Kervin also has a lot of issues with his staff as he lacks discipline and control.
When Jon arrives, he is unimpressed by the exterior of the bar.
Jon ran several bars in the Hollywood area, and he knows how competitive it is to a bar in that area.
Chef Keith Jones and mixologist Michael Tipps help Jon with the recon.
Keith enters the bar and orders a dry martini.
When the staff makes his drink, Keith notices the bar staff uses glasses to scoop ice instead of an ice scooper.
This practice is dangerous as the glass could break into the ice.
If that happened, it would be impossible to tell the glass apart from ice and a customer could accidentally get a piece of ice in their drink.
Keith also orders chicken wings to test what the food is like at Weber’s Place.
The chicken wings are rubbery and discolored. Keith refuses to eat it.
The cooks in the kitchen are also very slow, so it took a long time for the food to come out..
Jon then enters the bar to talk to Kervin.
Kervin tells Jon he hires bands who gain popularity and then leaves his bar for a more popular venue, taking their followings with them.
Kervin also believes his staff is stealing from him.
That could be why is why he is losing so much money.
Jon goes on a tour of the kitchen. As you’d expect from a bar appearing on the show, the kitchen is absolutely filthy.
There is a container of blood that the chef forgot to dispose of. Super gross!
The fridge is also warm, meaning the chicken is not at the correct temperature. The bar is also very dirty.
Rodiah, the bartender, is rude to Jon Taffer.
The staff cleans the bar and server Lelia stays as she wants to show her worth.
Jon returns the next day to a clean kitchen and bar, which is a huge upgrade over the prior situation.
Jon shows Kervin the amount of money he has lost in liquor, and Jon is appalled.
On Friday, they lost $715, and the day before, they lost $435.
How can you run a successful bar if you’re losing hundreds per night in liquor? It’s crazy!
Mario was working that night, so Jon and Kervin approached him.
Mario says he gave out too many free shots to count. Mario even admits to taking money straight out of the register.
Kervin wants to give him one more chance, but he ultimately fires him.
Michael teaches the bar tricks to stop them from overpouring.
Chef Van is not defrosting the chicken properly and is taught how to do so.
Jon does a stress test to discover the weak points of the bar.
The bartenders struggle. Chef Van is very slow in the kitchen and is undercooking the chicken.
In general, customers are not happy, so Weber’s Place has a lot of work cut out for it if Kervin wants to make it successful.
To change things up, Jon wants to make the bar a Caribbean-themed restaurant and grill. As part of that rebrand, he changes the bar’s name from Weber’s Place to Weber’s Rum Bar and Grill.
He wants the bar to have live music but not depend on it.
The staff loves the new food and drinks.
There is also a new jukebox to help supplement the money when there is not a live band.
The staff struggles during the relaunch but eventually gets it together.
So – was the Weber’s Rum Bar and Grill Bar Rescue episode a success? Let’s go through it…
Weber's Rum Bar and Grill Update - What Happened Next?
Now that we’ve recapped the Weber’s Bar Rescue episode, let’s talk about what happened after Jon Taffer and his crew left Reseda, CA.
Soon after the visit from Jon Taffer and the bar’s rebrand, Kervin was booking multiple bands a night and things seemed to be going much better.
Unlike a lot of bar owners, Kervin decided to keep Jon’s new name of Weber’s Rum Bar and Grill.
However, he also rehired Mario, the bartender who was giving out lots of free shots and causing liquor losses.
Kervin didn’t share the new sales numbers with Bar Rescue, but the Yelp reviews for the bar were horrible.
It had just a two star rating, with people complaining about pretty much everything from the service to the food and drinks.
Is Weber’s from Bar Rescue still open?
Given the poor reviews, it’s no surprise that Weber’s Rum Bar and Grill closed in July 2013, less than a year after the Weber’s Bar Rescue episode aired on TV.
For a time, the old Weber’s Reseda location was occupied by a new restaurant/bar called The Canby. However, that bar also seemed to have poor reviews and would later end up closing.
As of 2023, the Reseda, California location seems to be empty.
A July 2022 picture from Google Maps confirms that the location is still occupied by the closed Canby bar.
I’ll update this post if a new business moves in.
And if you live near there and know anything about what happened to the old Weber’s Reseda CA location, please leave a comment below.
What happened to Leila from Weber’s Rum Bar and Grill?
A lot of people are wondering what happened to Leila, the server from the Weber’s Bar Rescue episode.
Leila has a few acting credits according to her IMDB page, mostly two short films (in addition to her Bar Rescue experience).
I’m not sure what else she’s up to as I don’t like to dig into people’s personal lives, so I’ll just leave it as linking her public IMDB page.
Why did Weber’s bar close?
The Weber’s owner didn’t post an exact reason for the bar’s closing, so I’m not 100% sure.
However, as I mentioned, the Weber’s bar reviews were pretty horrible.
Overall, it had just a 2 star rating on over 84 Yelp reviews, which is bad even for a bar that appeared on Bar Rescue.
A lot of the reviews specifically mention slow/poor service as being a big issue.
Here’s a sampling of some of the reviews that were written after the visit from Jon Taffer…
2 star review from April 2013:
Awesome venue for Michale Graves but aside from that, it’s a shithole.
Anything upgraded from their episode in Bar Rescue has vanished.
It’s a dirty little punk dive and not the good kind.
The bartenders didn’t even know how to make a hurricane.
The hot wings weren’t bad but they weren’t anything special either.
Not worth a trip to the valley unless you have a damn good show playing there and it’s the closest venue of the tour.
1 star review from March 2013:
I wanted to check out this place after I saw it on Bar Rescue and I can see why it was on there!!!!!
We walked in and it had a great look but HORRIBLE SERVICE!!!!
I was there with my partner and waiting for a friend, we sat ourselves and waited ….. waited …… waited …… and still waited but no one came an greeted us, asked if we wanted a drink, nothing.
My friend finally showed up about 10 min later but still nothing.
I purposely didnt go up to the bartender/waitress because I wanted to see if she would even acknowledged us but not to my surprise she didn’t!
We waited another 10 min before we left.
I would NOT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE!!!!!
3 star review from September 2012:
I decided to come check out Weber’s after the Bar Rescue renovation because I’m a fan of the show and wanted to see if the improvements were substantial.
Overall, it was a decent experience but it wouldn’t be the first place I’d spend my Friday or Saturday night.
Some positives are that the bacon burger I ordered was surprisingly very good.
… (I cut this because it’s very long)
Some negatives that stood out was the slow service and some of the prices were unreasonable.
My food sat out in the open for a good five to seven minutes before our server noticed it was even there.
Servers tended to disappear for long periods of time and it always seemed to be at the wrong time.
Also, beer prices were odd to say the least.
There were some positive reviews, but they were generally pretty bad.
Given that, I’m not surprised that Weber’s Rum Bar closed.
If you want to see some other nearby California Bar Rescue episodes, you can check out my updates for Theory / Paladino’s in Tarzana, Pat’s Cocktails in North Hollywood, and Champs Sports Pub in Burbank.
Thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/webers-sports-bar-and-grill-reseda-2https://www.facebook.com/Webers-Sports-Bar-and-Grill-242085763757/
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Last updated: 2023-02-01 07:09
What happened to the staff
Taylor
Door mats cant run a business because they’ll just let bad employees walk all over them. The guy couldn’t even stick to his guns and avoid rehiring one of the worst offenders in that place. The owner destroyed his own dream because he didn’t have the conviction to run things the way they needed to be ran.
Why would you rehire somebody that YOU KNEW HE WAS STEALING FROM YOU
Yeah it makes no sense. There’s a reason these bars fail.
For 4 YEARS!!! A fool and his money will soon be separated.
There is a reason these bars fail
Can’t put lipstick on a pig ……
I used to DJ there back in the early 90’s. It was a dive back then but FUN!
Only good thing about that place was leila
When I moved to Reseda in ’05, I would stop at Canby’s which was across the street from the future Weber’s. Canby’s was a dive bar with a great following of regulars, personable female bartenders, some that had worked at better places in their younger days, and some that just truly fit the establishments personality. They brought in homemade chili or some other dish on various nites. Good crowd. Why am I describing the eventual heir to Weber’s? Because when Weber’s went bust, the owner of Canby’s had the brain farther to move across the street and the loss of the homey, friendly regulars atmosphere was sucked dry by the cold and impersonal feeling that Weber’ left in its wake. Weber’s was a shithole, as others said; crappy food, bartenders who could care less about what their customers cared about – AKA don’t bother me, I’m just a worker bee here. Never felt clean or friendly. So that karma carried over like so many similarly failed venues to the next attempt to expand but gives up its personality.
Thanks for sharing the backstory! Appreciate it.
Pre hair implant Taffer
I lived in Reseda until 1983. At that time Weber’s Place was the hottest place around. They had hermit crab races at the bar and video games upstairs.
I visited once in the late ’80s and the place had already gone down hill.
That piece of SHIT Rodiah needs a smack in the face, if not more. Who the hell does she think she is that ANYONE would be afraid or her, or give a rat’s ass what she thinks/feels/says. Glad that trash was fired.