Status: CLOSED
The Moneyhole is perhaps the most appropriately named bar in Bar Rescue history. Located in Chicago, it lived up to its name by draining the owner’s finances until there was nothing left. The story is a cautionary tale about what happens when people who shouldn’t own bars decide to buy one anyway.
Origins of a Disaster
The bar had been purchased as an investment. The owner figured running a bar would be fun. Easy money. A place to hang out with friends while profits rolled in. These assumptions are almost always wrong, and The Moneyhole proved it spectacularly.
The fantasy of bar ownership is seductive. You imagine yourself behind the bar, chatting with regulars, maybe pouring yourself a drink after closing. The reality is inventory management, staff drama, health inspections, and customers who don’t pay their tabs.
Bars are brutally competitive. Margins are thin – pennies on every drink if you’re doing it right, losses on every drink if you’re not. Staff can steal you blind without proper systems. Customers are fickle. One bad Yelp review can tank a weekend’s revenue. The idea of a bar as a passive investment is a fantasy that has bankrupted countless would-be entrepreneurs.
By the time Bar Rescue arrived, The Moneyhole was living up to its name. The owner had already invested more than he ever planned to. Each month brought new losses. The math was clear: something had to change or the bar would drag its owner into financial ruin.
Taffer’s Diagnosis
Jon Taffer found the usual problems, multiplied by inexperience. Poor layout that made service inefficient – bartenders walking twice as far as necessary for every drink. A concept that didn’t resonate with the neighborhood. Staff that weren’t properly trained because nobody knew how to train them. An owner who didn’t understand his own business because he’d never been in the business before.
The renovation focused on operational efficiency. How to serve more drinks faster. How to reduce waste through proper portioning. How to get the right customers in the door and keep them spending. These are the basics of bar management, but they’re not obvious to someone who bought a bar thinking it would run itself.
Taffer also pushed for a rebrand. The Moneyhole name, while accurate, wasn’t exactly aspirational. Who wants to spend their evening at a place that admits it’s a financial disaster? The name itself was driving away customers who might otherwise give the place a chance.
The Inexperience Problem
You can teach someone to make drinks. You can show them how to manage staff. You can give them systems and processes for inventory and scheduling and customer service. But you can’t teach passion for the industry. You can’t teach the willingness to work eighty-hour weeks for years. You can’t teach the obsessive attention to detail that successful bar owners possess.
The Moneyhole’s owner came to the bar business as an investor, not a hospitality professional. He expected returns without putting in the work required. When the returns didn’t materialize, he was surprised. He shouldn’t have been.
Bar Rescue can provide education and renovation, but it can’t transform someone into a bar owner. Either you have the drive and dedication the industry demands, or you don’t. No amount of television intervention can create that from scratch.
After the Rescue
The bar implemented changes after filming. There was initial improvement – the new systems worked, the rebrand attracted some fresh attention, the operational efficiencies added up. But the fundamental problem remained: an owner who wasn’t cut out for the bar business.
Old habits crept back. The new systems got abandoned when they required effort to maintain. The rebrand faded as the original identity reasserted itself. Without someone committed to daily excellence, the improvements dissolved.
Within a year or two, The Moneyhole was struggling again. Eventually, it closed. The owner moved on, presumably having learned an expensive lesson about the bar business.
The Broader Problem
The Moneyhole represents a common Bar Rescue archetype: the inexperienced owner who thought the bar business would be easy. These rescues rarely succeed because the fundamental problem isn’t operational – it’s that the owner shouldn’t be running a bar in the first place.
Some businesses fail because of bad luck or circumstances. Economic downturns, neighborhood changes, unexpected competition – external factors can doom even well-run establishments. Other businesses fail because the wrong person was running them.
The Moneyhole was probably always going to close. Bar Rescue just delayed the inevitable and provided an educational episode for viewers. The lesson is clear: don’t buy a bar unless you’re prepared to work harder than you’ve ever worked before. And definitely don’t name it something that admits it’s a terrible investment.
Last verified: January 2026
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