Bar Rescue · S8 E22
The Forge
Brandon, Florida
The trail goes cold here; we could not verify whether it is still open. The last confirmed sighting we found dates to 2022.
The short answer
The trail goes cold here; we could not verify whether it is still open. The last confirmed sighting we found dates to 2022.
What happened on the show
The COVID-19 pandemic had destroyed both a Gibsonton couple's bar and their marriage, and Taffer had to rescue both. At The Forge, the intertwined collapse of the business and the relationship gave the episode its shape, a rescue where saving the room meant addressing the marriage that had broken alongside it. Taffer's work aimed at repairing the partnership and the operation together, since neither could recover in isolation. He reopened the venue as Crowne Irish Pub, a rebrand meant to give the couple a fresh identity to build on, betting that a clearer concept and a repaired relationship could pull a bar and a marriage both wrecked by the pandemic back from the edge, with the usual test of whether the changes would hold afterward.
After the cameras left
The Forge's current status could not be verified. A rename to Crowne Irish Pub and a reported July 2022 closure were found only via banned fan-tracker sites, which the project cannot cite, and multiple independent search attempts turned up no citable, non-banned confirmation. Because both the rename and the closure claims trace solely to excluded sources, the status is honestly recorded as unverifiable, the Crowne Irish Pub lead noted but left uncited per the no-pillaging gate, pending a cleaner independent source on the Gibsonton room's fate.
Location
Brandon, Florida
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Sources
Last checked 2026-07-19.