What Happened to Fort One Bar & Lounge After Bar Rescue?

Fort One Bar & Lounge occupied a corner space in San Francisco's Russian Hill area when Jon Taffer and his team arrived for the November 2016 episode "Ice, Mice, Baby." Owner Jason Wanigatunga had taken over the bar from his father in 2014 and, according to the episode, drew heavily on the business's profits while employees earned little. Undercover footage and inspections turned up unclean ice buckets, dead rodents and fruit flies in a storage area, and mold growing inside the ice machine's filtration system, the discoveries that gave the episode its title.

The kitchen and bar operations were shown to be poorly organized, with staff citing low pay relative to the owner's own habits. During the rescue, Taffer's team retrained the bar staff on service standards, reworked the drink menu, and renovated the physical space, including new refrigeration and ice-handling equipment meant to prevent a repeat of the sanitation problems documented before the visit. One bartender, Ashley, stood out during the process; Taffer was impressed enough by her skills that he hired her onto his own consulting team by the end of the episode.

As part of the overhaul, the bar was relaunched under a new name and concept, The Roc Bar & Nightclub, aimed at a nightlife-focused crowd rather than the previous lounge format. The relaunch did not sustain the business long-term. Bar Rescue Updates reported in April 2021 that The Roc Bar & Nightclub had closed, with fan-site coverage placing the actual closure around 2019, a few years after the televised visit. Yelp's business listing for the location, updated as of August 2026, continues to display a closed status, consistent with those earlier reports.

No government or licensing record was located to pin down an exact closure date, so the 2019 timeframe cited by fan sites and the ongoing closed listing on Yelp are treated here as the best available evidence for this record. Some secondary fan-site commentary from 2023 suggested a different bar had since moved into the storefront, but that claim could not be independently confirmed through a business website, news coverage, or a maps listing during this research pass, so it is not reflected in the recorded status. As of the most recent check, there is no indication that a business is currently operating at 2801 Leavenworth Street under either the Fort One or Roc Bar name, and the location is treated here as closed rather than under new ownership.