What Happened to Dimples After Bar Rescue? (Burbank, CA)

Dimples, billed as America's first karaoke bar, had been run in Burbank, California by owner Sal Ferraro since 1982 and once drew a celebrity clientele, but by the time of "Karaoke Katastrophe" the bar was carrying debt and struggling to attract younger customers. Recon teams found an exterior so cluttered with layered signage that the karaoke concept was not obvious from the street, a sound system unchanged since the bar opened, hand-written drink tickets instead of a point-of-sale system, and kitchen cross-contamination serving overcooked, freezer-burned food. Ferraro's own conduct toward female customers and undercover staff was also a focus of the episode, with Jon Taffer addressing the behavior with him directly during the visit.

A cook's collapse during the stress test, attributed to the pressure of the night, briefly left the kitchen without its usual staff. The rescue team cleaned and retrained the kitchen, brought in a karaoke specialist to modernize the entertainment side, installed a new point-of-sale system and updated sound equipment, and removed much of Ferraro's Hollywood memorabilia from the walls for the relaunch, which the city's mayor marked with a certificate recognizing the bar's decades in business. Sales rose about 30 percent in the six-week follow-up, giving Ferraro room to work down his debt, though he began bringing some of the removed memorabilia back soon after.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Daily News, Ferraro described the Bar Rescue experience as a mix of helpful and unwelcome changes. Dimples continued operating for about two more years before the city approved a large mixed-use redevelopment for the site; the Los Angeles Daily News reported the bar's January 2015 closure as the project moved forward. The 3413 West Olive Avenue location has since been demolished and replaced by a development anchored by a Whole Foods Market, according to the fan site Reality TV Updates, and Dimples did not reopen elsewhere.