What Happened to Joe's Thirsty Lizard Bar & Grill After Bar Rescue?

Joe's Thirsty Lizard Bar & Grill was opened in Horn Lake by Navy veteran Joe Scott in 2015 without a liquor license in place, and by the time Bar Rescue's "Mississippi Rears" episode aired in April 2018, Joe had promoted a former dishwasher, Mike, to manager despite no leadership experience. Hidden-camera footage showed flat beer, a bartender improvising a Bloody Mary out of view of customers, and a cook, nicknamed Dirty Red, cross-contaminating food while working the kitchen alone. Jon Taffer's team stepped in to stop customers from eating food prepared under those conditions.

Mixologist Sean Ford and chef Michael Ferraro retrained the bar on a consistent Bloody Mary recipe and elevated two existing menu items, while Taffer split the bar into two teams for a stress test led separately by Joe and Mike to evaluate each man's ability to run service. As part of the renovation, the bar was renamed The Iron Horse, with new equipment installed throughout, and Dirty Red was given a chef's coat marking his progress in the kitchen. Dirty Red became a minor fan favorite after the episode aired and posted a brief video referencing the show on social media in the following weeks, though he has not been publicly linked to the bar's later ownership changes.

The Iron Horse initially held a four-star Yelp rating on a small number of reviews, and the relaunch appeared to stabilize the business for a period. In October 2019, Joe Scott posted on Facebook thanking supporters and staff and stating that two new operators, Kelly and Nancy, would take over and keep the bar's employees working, effectively confirming the business had changed hands and that Joe's ownership had ended. The property briefly continued as a bar called the Lazy Lizard, which, according to Reality TV Updates, also closed in February 2020.

According to Reality TV Updates, the building was later occupied by an unrelated restaurant, Flights Fish and Wings, as of 2023. A Yelp listing for the address at 6541 U.S. Highway 51, updated as recently as August 2026, still shows the location under the Iron Horse name and marks it closed, consistent with no bar currently operating there under any of its post-Bar Rescue names.