Is Zanzbar (Zanzibar Billiards) Still Open? Bar Rescue Update (Denver, CO)

Zanzibar, spelled Zanzbar on its Bar Rescue episode, was downtown Denver's first bar when owner Ami Benari opened it in 2009, and it built a following around ten pool tables and a rotating beer list. A serious accident sidelined Benari in 2011, and in his absence the staff let standards slip; by the time he returned about six months before filming "Empty Pockets," he had fired much of his senior team and was working against a self-imposed six-month clock to turn the business around. Recon spies found servers ignoring customers, bartenders giving away free drinks, and a kitchen where a cook was seen touching food after coughing into his hand, prompting Taffer to order the kitchen's inventory thrown out as contaminated.

During the stress test, continued over-pouring and a shortage of clean glasses led Taffer to halt the exercise, and a heated exchange between Benari and the show's chef nearly ended the rescue before the two worked things out one-on-one. The rescue team retrained the bar on portion control and quicker ticket times, added new cocktails built around the pool-hall crowd, and rebranded the bar Solids and Stripes to play up its billiards focus for the relaunch. Sales rose by roughly half in the six weeks that followed, according to the episode's own follow-up.

Benari moved away from the Solids and Stripes name within about a year, returning to the Zanzibar identity the bar had carried since 2009; today the business also markets itself as Zanzibar Billiards, per its own Facebook page and a 2024 update from the fan site Reality TV Updates. The Denver Department of Public Health and Environment cited the bar in July 2020 for violating Covid-19 public health orders, according to Denver TV station KDVR. Benari has since opened additional billiards-focused bars in the Denver area, including Tarantula Billiards and a Lakewood venue called Hangar 101.