Back in January, I got a call from the producers at TruTV asking if I wanted to be a judge on a new reality competition show. The concept of Barmageddon was pretty simple: Two bar owners switch establishments, spruce things up a bit, and then it’s determined who did a better job. (“Like the Wife Swap of bars,” one of the PAs told me.)
TruTV happened to be filming the pilot in Baltimore, swapping Holy Frijoles owner Geoff Danek with Frederick’s on Fleet part-owner Jim Saufley. So I channeled my inner Gail Simmons and made it down to Hampden on a freezing cold night. My partner-in-crime was Brian Michael Lawrence, editorial director at Sinclair Broadcasting Group.
Clearly no one was ready for us when we got there. If you’ve ever been on the set of a TV show (or movie, I imagine), you can relate. Approximately 90 percent of your time is devoted to waiting around while the crew sets up shots or they film dozens of re-takes. So we ate dinner and had some cocktails while being occasionally interviewed for the TV show.
After a couple hours, we were driven down to Frederick’s on Fleet in Canton, which has since closed (that spot seems to be cursed). The same sort of hurry-up-and-wait activity took place, while we sampled more drinks and snacks, said some lines for the camera, and chatted with the show’s host, comedian Mo Mandel. Then we went home and that was it.
Fast-forward 10 months later when I get a text message saying that I was just on TV. Lo and behold, Barmageddon did get picked up and TruTV aired the pilot episode last night.
Truth be told, the show is pretty terrible. The first episode sets very little context—viewers barely hear about Baltimore and hear nothing about the neighborhoods where these bars are located. All of the drama and antics between the bar owners is overly staged. The winning bar owner isn’t determined by creativity or innovative menu options, but merely by how much money he made that night.
At the end of the episode, Danek, Saufley, and host Mandel meet up at Broadway Diner to reveal the results. Turns out that Danek’s takeover of Frederick’s on Fleet was more successful because he made 125-percent more money than a typical night.
Between Baltimore’s appearances on Bar Rescue, Kitchen Nightmares, and now Barmageddon, you know you’ve made it once you’ve lapped the reality-show circuit. You can view clips of Barmageddon here and the entire series premieres on December 3.