Culturebox: One Less Sad Sports Bar

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television One Less Sad Sports Bar A makeover show for dodgy drinking establishments. By Troy Patterson Posted Friday, July 22, 2011, at 6:46 PM ET Bar Rescue (Spike, Sundays at 10 p.m. ET) is to taprooms as Kitchen Nightmares is to hash houses. On each episode, a hospitality expert named Jon Taffer plunges into a diseased watering hole and administers the disinfecting agent of his professional expertise. It elevates the tone of the proceedings that Taffer is witty, direct, and constitutionally inclined to promote himself as a consultant rather than as a paroxysm-prone pseudo-celebrity. Incidentally, I wonder if there's room out there for a theme bar on the theme of bars that need makeovers, with its drinks menu offering "troubleshooters" and its waitresses always on break. Taffer's first task is to reform Angel's Sport Bar, which is located in the Inland Empire, an area identified by some as "the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area" and by others as "the region of California that any travel agencies or colleges just don't want the rest of the world to know about." Incidentally, the recent news that David Lynch is opening a Mulholland Drive-style nightclub in Paris encourages us to wonder whether he'd considering launching an Inland Empire-themed joint in Indio, with a completely incomprehensible drinks menu and waitresses doing the Loco-motion at irregular intervals. To continue reading, click here. Troy Patterson is Slate's television critic. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Look at How Much Cash the Government Has in Its Bank Account Right Now More Humans Are Living Longer, but Why Aren't They Living To Be Older Than 114? Three Cooking Shows That Will Actually Make You Want To Cook	Advertisement
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