Is Spunky Monkey Bar & Grill Still Open? (Auburn, WA)

Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network) visited Auburn, Washington, for "Monkey Business," season 7 episode 11, which aired January 15, 2014, focused on Spunky Monkey Bar & Grill at 124 2nd Street SE. The restaurant was owned by Donel Brinkman, who according to the episode's own framing had run Spunky Monkey for sixteen years, and chef Robert Irvine used the standard two-day renovation to rework the bar-and-grill menu, streamline kitchen operations, and refresh the dining room for a business that also hosted nightly karaoke and functioned as a neighborhood gathering spot in downtown Auburn, south of Seattle, drawing a regular local crowd. Spunky Monkey Bar & Grill continues to operate at the same 2nd Street SE address.

The restaurant's own website, spunkymonkeybarandgrill.com, currently lists the address, phone number, and hours of operation, Monday through Friday from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. and weekends from 1 p.m. to 2 a.m., and links to active Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) accounts for the business. Reality TV Revisited's account of the restaurant's history describes a mostly positive customer response after the renovation, noting that the business narrowed its menu at one point to help keep food quality consistent with a smaller kitchen staff, a change that mirrored adjustments other renovated restaurants on the show made after their episodes aired for viewers at home. Between the restaurant's own current website, its active social media accounts, and third-party listings such as Tripadvisor showing continued customer activity, Spunky Monkey Bar & Grill's ongoing operation is supported by more than one independent, dated source found during this research pass. No indication of a name change, ownership change, or closure was found in any source reviewed for this record, and the business appears to remain a long-running fixture of its downtown Auburn block more than a decade after its Restaurant: Impossible appearance.