Is Bryant's Ice House Still Open? Bar Rescue Update (Katy, TX)

Bryant's Ice House, a biker-frequented bar on a poorly lit stretch of road outside Katy, Texas, was the subject of the April 13, 2014 episode "Taxed Out in Texas." Owner Jeff Simon, a former tax accountant, had invested roughly $1.1 million in the property but had not addressed its remote location or its rowdy motorcycle-club clientele. Recon visits found bartenders serving weak, inconsistent cocktails, a food-truck operator leaving the truck unattended to hand-deliver orders (a food-safety concern), and staff conflicts that escalated into a physical altercation among employees in front of customers while Simon did not intervene.

A maintenance worker was found intoxicated and behaving inappropriately toward the show's female observers. During the stress test, bartender Missy struggled to keep pace and could not judge her own drinks because she did not drink alcohol; both she and another employee were dismissed following performance issues uncovered during the visit. To address the bar's image and location problems, the rescue team renamed the business Wildcatter Saloon, adopting an oil-industry theme intended to appeal to a broader customer base than the existing motorcycle-club crowd, and added exterior signage to help customers find the hard-to-see location.

Mixologist Russell Davis retrained the bar staff on cocktail fundamentals and speed, while a food-service consultant restructured the food-truck operation so servers, rather than the cook, retrieved orders. At the six-week follow-up, sales were reported up more than 35%. Ownership changed hands around January 2017, when Simon sold the business to Justin Whitfield, previously the owner of a different Bar Rescue bar, the End Zone Sports Bar and Grill in Houston. Whitfield kept the Wildcatter Saloon name. In 2018, Whitfield told a Houston-area TV station that Hurricane Harvey had damaged the building and that repairs were delayed after the show's producers discussed, then did not proceed with, a follow-up renovation episode; a Bar Rescue spokesperson attributed the change in plans to host Jon Taffer's illness during the relevant production window. The business's own website lists a calendar of ticketed concerts and events running through December 2026 and posts current weekly operating hours.