Jon Taffer is well known for his wildly successful show Bar Rescue. The show has been on for ten years and continues to grow. Taffer virtually stopped by The Bobby Bones Show to share his thoughts on the service industry post-coronavirus, and share some fun behind-the-scenes details of his show.

The interview kicked off with Taffer showing off the massive bar he has at his house. He was standing in front of several liquor bottles and when Bobby Bones asked him roughly how much worth in liquor was in his bar and he confessed only a couple hundred. That's because he said a lot of it was given to him from his friends, but he probably has about $22K worth of booze in his house bar.

In discussing the coronavirus pandemic and how the situation has impacted the service industry, Taffer admitted that he's really worried for several reasons. Because bars and restaurants have been looped into one group, the new guidelines have killed the 'bar side' of 'bar and restaurants' since they can no longer have standing room, or people walking up to bars. But mostly Taffer admitted that he's worried about the perception of restaurants. He said that restaurants could be doing everything right, but if they have customers standing in front of their restaurant or in their seats not wearing masks or abiding by social distancing, it could be a game changer for the restaurants and 'the perception' to possibly new customers. He said everyone should wear masks and abide by the guidelines put in place by the restaurants because now the trust is in the behavior of the customers, when before the pandemic it was just customers trusting restaurants and their sanitizing. He also shared that in the past few days, roughly 10 friends have called to share with him that they aren't reopening their restaurants. So the possibility of restaurants not returning post-coronavirus is a very real thing. Very important to note that Taffer also shared that the service industry knows how to have things properly sanitized since they've been doing it since their inception, which means people should feel confident going to restaurants and bars over other retail industries.

On a lighter note, Bones asked Taffer about his first possible alcoholic beverage. Since Bones has never had alcohol, he asked Taffer to share what kind of alcohol should be the first that Bones tries, if ever. Taffer suggested a Piña Colada and said Bones should add alcohol by the teaspoon so he dips his toes into alcohol, instead of jumping right in. He also shared that most people will start out drinking vodka and rum, and some of their taste buds will evolved over time into liking darker liquors like whiskey and bourbon.

Taffer also shared some behind-the-scenes of his show Bar Rescue. He said that he's not the one to actually pick the bars on the show. He created a piece of criteria for his casting company to use to find the bars that they cast in the shows. That way Taffer doesn't see the bars until he shows up on set. He says he gets a 60-second briefing and after that, he goes in. He thinks this has been the key to making the show so successful, because the viewers see the bar at the same time he does making everything much more genuine and authentic. Just as any viewers of the show know, he said it's definitely more about the people who own the bars, rather than the bars themselves.

About Bobby Bones

WLLR-FM · The Quad Cities #1 Country!