DC ExtraTime: The Challenge Comes to a Bar's Rescue

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

Tyrie (right) w/ Jon Taffer (center) & staff of
Oasis/Taza bar [TW @Susie_Gentleman]

While this year of 2020 has seen far more negative headlines than positive ones, one bright spot in this has seen the one show we wrap ourselves around more than any other in the world of MTV Reality, The Challenge, finally receive some overdue recognition in being the first of its kind reality competition series in this industry. Not only did so many of you look to the most recent season of Total Madness for a weekly escape in what was for a time the only major pro sport that was going on this year, it has also shined a light on the people who have competed on this show at one time or another.

A recurring instance in recent years has been of many past Challenger (or an alum from other series we cover) making an appearance on shows outside of what we cover and appearing with big names in the entertainment industry, and we here at DCBLOG have always made it a point to spotlight each and every one of those cameos. In the past year, those who have competed in the past have shown up on Dr. Phil, Married at First Sight, Say Yes to the Dress, Holey Moley, HGTV's House Hunters, and of course Bayleigh & Da'Vonne returning to where it all began for them on Big Brother All-Stars, among others. Better yet, we just might as well call this spinoff: The Challenge: Invasion of Other Networks.

In the instance of what we have for you next here, this is the first of a two-parter involving two members of one past Real World season from a decade & a half ago: the second will feature a lady who was part of a shower threesome when she moved into that house, then went from competing two times on The Challenge to now heading up one of American sports' biggest organizations... and we'll be featuring a member of the cast of the Denver season spying in on what goes on in her job as head of a bowling company when we'll feature her episode of CBS' Undercover Boss to come later.

But before we tell that story, there was that other time where someone from her same cast that lived at 5,280' above sea level found himself on national TV. But this one didn't involve finding himself in the middle of a hot-tub threesome, or when he was hit at by his Challenge partner. But rather, he was a bit part player in the time where the cameras from MTV's then-male focused & now-more premium sibling came walking into his workplace at the time back home in America's heartland, and a show that might be considered a cross between Extreme Makeover and that place "where everybody knows your name."

Once we finally get over this long year in a few months from now, 2020 will go down as one of the toughest years that we all have had to go through. And one of those sections of American society that have felt the pinch of this traumatic year is those who own & operate small businesses -- those run by families, startups and those who rely on people in their community to help them stay strong. And the economic impact caused by the pandemic closing most everything for several months will cause a ripple effect long after things get back to a sense of normalcy.

   When COVID-19 caused everything to slow down to a turtle's pace back in March, the places that were hit the hardest were the most simplistic of small businesses: local restaurants and bars. These are where people go to if they want to unwind after a long work day and for a date night out, or for somewhere to go to on the weekends to celebrate a birthday or to catch the big game with friends. But local regulations to enforce social distancing has drastically changed their businesses: gone temporarily are long lines for tables and bars jammed to capacity, in are outdoor dining and takeout orders.

For those who are enthusiasts in this part of American life that embodies that refreshing spirit of having a good time, it's likely you have heard of the Boston-based comedy Cheers: it began in the early '80s on NBC, but did so miserably ratings-wise in its first years it was on the edge of being axed. But a belief in great comedy and hard work paid off when the Peacock began to flourish later in the decade, and eventually Cheers and their beloved ensemble of characters had a decade-long run, culminating with its 1993 series finale being one of the highest-rated programs in the past thirty years.

   These days, a show that's as loyally watched by owners, employees and regular visitors of taverns & pubs alike is Bar Rescue, which has aired since 2011 on what is now Paramount Network, but when it premiered the channel carried the Spike TV moniker. Long Island entrepreneur Jon Taffer is considered a god in nightclub circles first working as a West Hollywood bartender at 19 before taking over the legendary Troubadour in 1978, and opening his first bar a decade later. And aside from helping launch NFL Sunday Ticket, Jon has spent his entire life in the hospitality industry, calling Vegas his home even though his accent shows you he is New York to the core.

   Those who watch Bar Rescue see the show's host utilize his decades' worth of experience in bars, restaurants and nightclubs to help those in desperate need if they can put his help to keep them afloat. Many have succeeded, while others did not... but not before they heard just about an earful from Jon just as much as those who operate under the wing of Gordon Ramsey does on his TV shows or whenever someone tries to quit in front of TJ Lavin. And the show is as much a Paramount Network tentpole as Lip Sync Battle, Ink Master, and Kevin Costner's Yellowstone, though it's slated to move elsewhere in the ViacomCBS stable as the ladder's massive success Paramount Network will again rebrand itself with more scripted than reality content.

   When you think of those who are part of the family that is MTV Reality, something that might come to mind for a lot of you is who in this vast community have actual jobs? Most of them do despite many of them taking month-plus breaks to film Challenges or other series... and some work in bars to help pay the tabs. Back in the good ole days, bars were regular hangout spots for those who you admire in this community for episode watch parties, live Challenge Mania shows and meet & greets... and when we first headed down to Siesta Key in 2017, Chloe & Kelsey were working at a local Tiki bar. Someone else who worked in a bar one time is our focus here, which brings us to pressing the rewind button.

It was back on Thanksgiving Week 2006 that The Real World made its way from the big cities on both coasts & in other countries and up into the Rocky Mountains, and that town at 5,280 feet above sea level. Denver played host to Season 18 of the show that began MTV Reality, and it had the task of following a stretch of seasons that included the first Las Vegas season, the first appearance of Karamo Brown and the debuts of longtime Challenge stalwarts Johnny Bananas, Wes, C.T. and Brad.

   The state capital and largest city in Colorado welcomed the latest group of seven strangers to the Mile High City, which saw them take on various tasks in the Rocky Mountains: they had their nights in the nightclubs of the trendy metropolis, and many of their days were spent out in the Coloradoan wildlife. The group assignment saw them team with Outward Bound Wilderness to scale mountains and live outdoors with kids who found temporary refuge in this region after the events of Hurricane Katrina down in New Orleans, which also affected a member of this cast. And for the annual trip out of town, the group took the long plane flight to Thailand before it hosted three Challenges.

   As is always the case, the cast who came here for The Real World Denver came from all over the country: Houstonian Alex Smith (not the QB) spent his summer break from a swimming scholarship at ASU to come up to Colorado, while Brooke LaBarbara flew here from Nashville with no idea that she would have her share of blow ups at a mile high. The dynamic for contrasting viewpoints was cast in having out & proud Atlantan Davis Mallory share a house with California conservative Stephen Nichols, himself opposed to gay marriage. Also from the west coast was Raiderette Jenn Grijalva who went on to become a staple of The Challenge, while New Jersey girl Colie Edison came here after graduating Tulane University while still scarred after Katrina devastated her new house.

And then, there's the guy who had a relatively short commute but taking the old-fashioned route of long-distance travel of taking Amtrak's California Zephyr west from the Heartland to the Rockies. Tyrie Ballard was a 23-year-old from Omaha who, as his original bio stated, was raised by a military dad and who found himself in a strict and aggressive upbringing which led him to find refuge in a local gang. He was determined to leave behind his troubled past as he went to the University of Nebraska, forging a reputation for his wit, his heart and being the big man on campus - quite literally with a taekwondo black belt which would eventually bring him to managing his own gym in his later years.

   Jenn was waiting for him upon his arrival at Denver's landmark Union Station, and so began quite a season for Tyrie, as he entered the house becoming attracted to the Southern belle but soon had a front row seat to Brooke and Jenn who had the winter's first hookup in, of course, the hot-tub. But soon, a binge night on the town saw Ty's drunk alter-ego, Leroy Jenkins, arrive in the Rockies, and when Davis got offended by hearing a bartender utter the "N"-word in Stephen's face that things got too tense with him and Ty when they got home. A more than unpleasant night ensued with the two before the Georgian temporarily went to a hotel to chill out after that fight.

   After that fight, Tyrie's other alter-ego, "Dark Kent," flew into town... and there, the more sensual side of him with the Superman like name got numbers from two local girls and they met him & Stephen at the same bar and gets to know one of them, Jazalle - and their romance continued during the season. But the next week, the recipe for disaster of alcohol and altitude came to light when Ty and Jenn got into it on a party bus. But that was just another rough night compared to what he had towards the end of their stay in Denver...

   A late-season blow-up that eventually saw him break things off with Jazalle led Tyrie to blow off some steam at the nearby bars with no idea that Denver police cars were parked outside the Real World house... and when he decided to take a piss on the side of the house, the cops were ready with their 'cuffs to put him under arrest for public intoxication much to Stephen's shock, and putting his future in the house up in the air... but it changed when he and the house went on their Outward Bound excursion, and he stayed through that and their eventual trip to Asia.

Just after moving out of that Real World house in the Rockies, Tyrie was on a plane en route to his debut on The Challenge when Inferno III took place down in South Africa, and would eventually do six of these, with Gauntlet III, The Island, Rivals I with Davis, Battle of the Exes and Rivals II following.

   And it's in the fifth one that he has most notable Challenge moment: Ty found himself in a precarious position when heard his partner, Jasmine of RW Cancun, talk behind his back with RW Back to Vegas' Naomi... and he was paid the price by the firecracker.

The last image of Tyrie on The Challenge was him being down on his knees after losing that first Rivals II elimination, and him being consoled by a tall ginger man who just got married last weekend - Robb of RW St. Thomas. But just a year later, the cameras of Bar Rescue came to the bar he worked at, Oasis Hookah Bar near the Old Market District in Omaha... so did Jon Taffer in his coast-to-coast trip to the worst bars in America in a last-ditch effort to save itself from going bust.

   Oasis was on the hit list of being one of 6,500 bars that are doing so poorly on the business side that it could possibly be shut down altogether, just four years after college grad Jesse Hill invested $50,000 into his dream just before he became a first-time daddy. His startup became the first of its kind in the state of Nebraska with the legal & alternative form of smoking known as hookah, popular among young adults where users use a multi-stemmed instrument to blow out flavored tobacco and sometimes pot.

   At its height when it began operations, Oasis would be making $30,000 a month as its position near the hub of nightlife in this top-50 American city. A local regular named Corrie was then hired to become its manager, but it may have been a disasterous choice as Oasis' services and quality declined under her wing - both in the bar and behind the scenes as it became more like a frat house than a functioning business. With his dream finding itself deep in a six-figure debt and owing back taxes to the feds and despite having the Omaha hookah field to itself, Jesse looked to Bar Rescue to revive Oasis.

When they drove up to outside the 4,000 sq. ft. space and glanced over at its operations through surveillance cameras inside, Jon, mixology expert & top L.A. bartender Joe Brooke and hookah entrepreneur John Naddour couldn't even bare to watch the college-like environment they had to put up with. Tyrie was part of a group of staffers who were background players compared to the major ones: owner Jesse, manager Corrie, senior bartender Brandon and server Nate.

   The trio had big doubts over whether Oasis can keep up with its competition down the street, and when two local recons waited for as much longer than in other lounges -- twenty minutes -- for their hookah to come in and having to go to the bathroom and puke, Jon & the guys knew this was not a good sight. And just as he's done many times ever since, they came walking in with plenty of fumes and plenty to vent once they looked over a bar that seems to be more like Animal House than a real business.

And once he spotted a dead rat underneath one of the couches among other blight that would make any one walking into it cringe, Jon proceeded to call Oasis "the most disgusting bar I've ever seen," and promptly walked out with the rest of his crew. That was a huge wake-up to everyone in the entire room, as it was promptly closed after that earful, and so began a four-day period of wanting to improve their operations, and where they made their first commitment to accountability after that sub-par BR visit.

   Some of the crew stayed up all night that Saturday night and into early Sunday morning to clean up just about everything in Oasis to the point where most everything feels like new and in opening day form, and where the object of every bar's affection of the hookah gear were fully cleaned. And there were other receipts: footage showed the inexperienced Corrie being carried out by staff after asking Brandon for a ride home after having too much to drink, and her having to plead her case that this job is not as high-paying as others in town.

   Along with Jon educating and motivating the Oasis staff, John helped to train the hookah team on how to properly make the right hookah, and Joe with improving the team's bartending skills (including Tyrie) in preparation for the first exam for any subject of a Bar Rescue episode: the "Stress Test." There, locals from the area come into the establishment to test the entire staff of what they learned from Jon and the crew, and if they can handle the pressure of what their new & improved facility can be capable of before the bar officially reopens. 

That stress test saw a spike in timeliness in drink service as Brandon stepped things up there, but outside of that it exposed some flaws with the entire floor staff and it was as if nothing much had changed when it came to the hookah's, and the patrons to Oasis let Jon know that it's still the same old Oasis. That included a black-light moment Jon with one of the guests...

Once the house lights came up, the group met up with Jon & his team who berated them for how they performed in the stress test... and once he realized that she had become the weak link in the team on both the managerial and the floor side of things, it was Jesse who handed Corrie the pink slip. She told him, "The biggest mistake that I've ever made is being loyal to this business," as she left Oasis upon her fired and drove off into the Nebraskan night, as Brandon was made manager by Jon's recommendations.

TW @Susie_Gentleman

   Even though Jesse loved this millennial's way of blowing out some smoke, another suggestion made by the big man was Oasis be not a hookah bar for the scarcely niche audience in this town of over 420,000. But instead, their idea was to turn their business into becoming a full-service nightclub for the 21 & over crowd that swapped out hookahs for a dance floor with the goal to be as competitive as the others just a mile away. Jon and his team rechristened the place Taza Nightclub with a new name, a fresh façade, and a new interior featuring a Moroccan theme, plenty of five-figure furniture, new backroom and premium spirits that made the wild mess of that first visit feel like ages ago.

   The entire staff walked into their new digs as if someone from the biggest nightclubs to the east or west of them city came into town to remake and reimagine Oasis, playing along the theme of where the art of hookah smoking began: it originated in India during the mid-1500s before migrating to Southern Asia, the Middle East and Europe. It wasn't until the '60s and '70s that hookah smoking caught on America, and though indoor smoking bans are in place in most of the country these days hookah cafes are often given special permits provided they switch to tobacco-free mixtures, and most that are in business cater to the college crowd and in population centers with a large Middle East migrant audience.

When you're featured on Bar Rescue, the exposure is big and it will garner attention - both from the locals and from everywhere else, including when Oasis reopened as Taza at the end of their episode. When it aired in April 2014 (around the time of The Challenge Free Agents premiered), Taza garnered plenty of buzz in the Omaha area... and shortly after Tyrie brought in one who he competed with on two Challenges, University of Nebraska alum & champ Camila Nagawka to host a premiere party along with the guy who let Barbie Beast Jenna get away from him - Jay G. from Real World Ex-Plosion.

   But after the afterglow of their time on national TV faded away, things began to get sketchy once again for Taza: four months after Bar Rescue aired, the Omaha City Council deliberated whether its liquor license be taken away after an assault was reported among other disturbances but they held onto their pass. In April 2015, a shooting took place outside the club, and a year later local authorities decided to suspend selling the hard beverages after the cops had more 911 calls... and after continuing to owe back taxes and trying to revert back to its lounge roots, Jesse and Oasis threw in the towel & called it a night.

   A message on Oasis/Taza's Facebook page wrote, "Omaha, it has been a fun 6 1/2 years. Thank you for all the support over that time, thru all the ups and downs. Thank you to all the staff that has worked here and busted their ass for this place. Thank you to all the DJs that kept the party going every weekend and kept you moving. And finally thank you to you, the loyal Hookah Heads that have been puff, puff, passing it with us since July 16th, 2010. We will genuinely miss you and we just hope we made a few fun memories for you all. So goodbye for now and See You in the Smoke!!!!"

REPORT COURTESY: KETV OMAHA

Yes, we saw him get into it with Davis and get arrested for going pee outside The Real World Denver house, Jasmine going after him on Battle of the Exes and a few other things too. But even though he was not featured in a confessional or didn't even say a word in the midst of the madness that took place when Jon Taffer came flying in, Tyrie does have a unique place among the Challenge Nation community in having appeared on a signature show for Paramount Network, thanks to being spotted by some alert viewers to what was known as Spike when it aired six years ago, and in the city he's called home most of his life... and that time when The Challenge came to Bar Rescue.

- I AM DC @DC408Dxtr

#TheEscapeYouDeserve