Jon Taffer is opening Taffer’s Tavern in downtown D.C.

Allison Gallagher / Flickr

Host of the television show Bar Rescue, expert beer-pourer, and self-described “thought leader” Jon Taffer will cut the ribbon on his first D.C. restaurant alongside a number of city officials Thursday.

Humbly dubbed Taffer’s Tavern, the “quintessential neighborhood pub,” will operate out of the old Penn Commons space on Sixth St. NW next to Capital One Arena. The D.C. spot, Taffer’s third full-service franchise location, is designed with traditional “Old-World taverns in mind … distinguished by dark woods, soft leathers, copper accents.” (If the D.C. location mimics the flagship outpost in Alpharetta, Georgia, the tavern’s interior will probably resemble a mashup of Ruby Tuesdays and Cheesecake Factory.)

Taffer will be joined on Thursday by Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development John Falcicchio, and D.C. councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie and Anita Bonds on for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and literal red carpet (?) outside the restaurant. It opens for dinner Thursday evening.

“Our great food and industry-leading cocktails will set new standards and excite the market,” Taffer, the author of Dont Bullsh*t Yourself, said in a press release. “We are looking forward to welcoming the community in to experience the tavern and to create lasting memories.”

Taffer’s Tavern menu consists of dishes like braised short ribs, Jon’s Roast Beef, and — for the D.C. location specifically — Taffer’s Wings with mumbo sauce. (Of course.) As for drinks, the a signature Campfire cocktail will feature Taffer’s trademarked Brown Butter Rye Whiskey and the bar will also serve a number of different draft and canned beers. (You can also, if you’d prefer, wash down your Hot Tavern Pretzel with a $7 Truly Hard Seltzer.)

The menu consists of sous-vide prepared food, or vacuum-sealed food that is cooked slowly at a precise temperature, made using what’s called Taffer’s Safe Dining System. (Nothing in the tavern seems to exist without his name on it.) Taffer piloted the system at the first location of the tavern in Georgia, which opened in 2021. The method cuts down kitchen staff by about 40%, he told Bar Business Magazine in a February 2021 article about the opening.

The owner of the local franchise is Felipe Hasselmann, the president and CEO of Cuisine Solutions, a sous-vide manufacturer based in Sterling, Virginia, that is also partnering with Taffer to make the food for the restaurants.

Taffer, for his part, doesn’t have the best record as a champion of laborers. In that Bar Business article, Taffer seemed to suggest that $15 minimum wages were making it hard to hire employees. And in 2016, a former employee of Taffer’s filed a racial and sexual discrimination suit claiming that the host fired non-white men on staff in favor of attractive white women. (It was settled out of court.)

Taffer also compared restaurant workers to hungry dogs, saying “a hungry dog is an obedient dog,” in an August 2021 conversation about cutting off pandemic unemployment assistance for American restaurant workers on the Fox News show The Ingraham Angle. Taffer — who received two SBA-backed PPP loans worth $61,000 — later apologized for his remarks on Twitter.

Taffer’s Tavern not the restaurateur’s first foray in the D.C.-area hospitality industry. He opened a location of Taffer’s Tavern at FedEx Field last year, and in 2012, attempted to fix downtown Silver Spring’s Piratz Tavern in an episode of Bar Rescue by turning the nautical-themed haunt into the “Corporate Bar & Grill.” During the episode, Taffer orchestrated the change as an attempt to curry favor to besuited workers looking for places to schmooze over lunch and happy hour cocktails.

The tavern’s owner, Tracy Rebelo, reverted back to the original pirate theme a week after Taffer’s visit. The bar closed for good in 2015, something Rebelo attributed in part to negative publicity related to the show.

Be on the lookout for more local haunts on Bar Rescue: Taffer told Washingtonian that he plans to film more episodes in the area, now that he has the tavern to use as a “training facility,” although he hasn’t found any that are in dire need of his rehab yet.

Taffer is one of several TV personalities opening restaurants in D.C. this year. Gordon Ramsay opened a bottomless pizza shop, also in Penn Quarter, with plans to bring his Hell’s Kitchen restaurant to the Wharf in October, and Flavortown Mayor Guy Fieri is opening his own restaurant near Capital One Arena next month.

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