‘Bar Rescue’ comes back to Tempe’s Brick and Barley

Expect more drama when a Tempe sports bar is featured on Spike’s “Bar Rescue: Back to the Bar” on Sunday, March 12.

Brick and Barley first appeared on “Bar Rescue” last summer. The reality series is hosted by TV personality Jon Taffer, who offers his bar-consulting expertise to failing spots. Brick and Barley, previously named Baseline Sports Bar, is owned by A.J. Hunter and employs an all-female staff known as the “Baseline Babes,” including Hunter’s two daughters.

In the July 17, 2016, episode, Brick and Barley received a new name, a makeover and new food and cocktail menus. The bar was losing $4,000 a month, so Taffer and mixology expert Daniel Ponsky advised Hunter to reach outside of her mostly male customer base and try to attract more women.

In Sunday’s episode, Ponsky returns to Brick and Barley to see how the bar has been doing and to check on the cocktail program he created. In the preview trailer, Hunter admits they have dropped the recommended changes.

“We didn’t keep any of your drinks,” Hunter says, with a shocked reaction from Ponsky. “We still have our core group here, and that core group is the beer drinker, and I understand that you’re really trying to appeal to women, but our core group here is men.”

Ponsky explains that the purpose of the new drinks was to help build the business.

“I was a little taken back by the fact that they scrapped the entire cocktail menu,” Ponsky says. “Everything had a reason. There was science behind everything we put in this place. I expected to see a lot more female faces when I walked into the door. We have failed.”