What Happened to The Sandbar Brewery & Grill After Bar Rescue?

The Sandbar Brewery & Grill was an Albuquerque, New Mexico bar and restaurant at 4100 San Mateo Blvd NE, established in 2017 according to RestaurantGuru. Bar Rescue featured it in the Season 7 episode "Life's a Beach" (aired 2020-04-05, with the makeover filmed in August 2019 according to Bar Rescue Updates). According to Bar Rescue Updates, Jon Taffer renamed the bar Playa Island Bar during the rescue, but the business reverted to the Sandbar name shortly afterward. The reversion did not save it. Bar Rescue Updates reported that The Sandbar closed in November 2019, only a few months after the rescue aired.

Yelp's listing for the business, updated 2026-09, is titled "THE SANDBAR BREWERY & GRILL - CLOSED" and shows 57 reviews and 52 photos accumulated over its run; a separate listing on RestaurantGuru also marks the business permanently closed. The brewery-and-grill concept combined a full bar with food service, a format that struggled to hold a consistent identity through the name changes described by Bar Rescue Updates. No source reviewed for this record indicates that a new business has since opened at the San Mateo Boulevard address, and no current website or active social account for The Sandbar or Playa Island Bar was found.

The Yelp review count, accumulated between the business's 2017 opening and its 2019 closure, suggests it operated for roughly two years before the Bar Rescue makeover and only a few additional months after it. The short interval between the show's renovation and the reported November 2019 closure means the bar operated under its post-rescue branding, and then its reverted original name, for only a matter of months before shutting down. Reviews accumulated on the Yelp and RestaurantGuru listings referenced both the original Sandbar branding and the brief Playa Island Bar period, reflecting customer awareness of the name change during the business's final months.