barBar Rescue · Season 3, Episode 16 · Aired August 11, 2013
Characters Quarters
Garner, North Carolina
The name changed after the show, but it kept operating. It now goes by MoonRunners Saloon.
On the show
Season 3, Episode 16 · August 11, 2013 · bar
Revisited in Back to the Bar: Hot-Headed Owners (S4E19, aired 2015-04-05) as MoonRunners Saloon; Revisited in Back to the Bar: Blue in the Frog Face (S6E11, aired 2018-05-20) as MoonRunners Saloon
What happened after
Renamed 'MoonRunners Saloon' after Bar Rescue ('Home of the World's Largest Moonshine Menu'), now with two locations (Garner and Dunn NC). Actively operating.
What happened on the show
A transplanted Yankee family was floundering trying to run a bar in a Dixie setting, and the brother at the center of it made everything worse. At Characters Quarters in Garner, North Carolina, he verbally abused his own family and staff while the rest of them wore ridiculous costumes to prop up one of the weakest concepts Taffer had encountered to that point, a mismatch of theme and place the episode drove home with a pointed flashback to the notorious Piratz Tavern. The rescue had to defuse the hot-headed brother and kill the costume gimmick at the same time, since neither the family peace nor the concept could survive with both in place. Taffer scrapped the whole premise and reopened the room as MoonRunners Saloon, built around a moonshine theme with genuine regional identity, something a North Carolina crowd could actually claim as its own. The bet was that a real Southern concept, freed of the costumes and the family screaming matches, could turn an out-of-place bar into a room the town embraced.
After the cameras left
MoonRunners Saloon became one of the show's genuine success stories. It expanded to two North Carolina locations, in Garner and Dunn, and billed itself as home of the world's largest moonshine menu. The show's own revisit found the operation thriving and scouting franchise sites, and owner Guy later launched a food truck and drove it across the country to visit other rescued bars, its artwork featuring Taffer and his catchphrase. Active social presence backs the ongoing business at high confidence.
Sources
Confidence: high. Last checked 2026-07-19.