barBar Rescue · Season 3, Episode 21 · Aired October 6, 2013
Rocky Point Cantina
Tempe, Arizona
It closed and is no longer operating.
What happened after
Death-metal-themed bar; renamed 'Havana Cabana Bar and Grill' after a Season 4 Bar Rescue intervention, which was ultimately unsuccessful.
What happened on the show
Taffer ran an unusual play in Tempe, staying outside the bar entirely and watching his experts work a room its owner had let curdle. Rocky Point Cantina was built around an ill-conceived death-metal theme, run by an oblivious owner, and stocked with bathrooms filthy enough to drive off the college-age crowd it needed to survive. Rather than lead the recon himself, Taffer kept his distance, reviewed the footage of his team's visit, then walked in the next morning after the staff had scrubbed the place down, a format that put the owner's blind spots on full display. His verdict was a hard reality check, that the theme, the filth and the disengagement were all pushing away the exact customers a Tempe bar should own. Taffer scrapped the metal concept and reopened the room as Havana Cabana Bar and Grill, a warm, tropical rebrand meant to trade a punishing aesthetic for something a wider crowd might actually walk into and enjoy.
After the cameras left
The Havana Cabana rebrand did not save it. Phoenix New Times, an established alt-weekly, ran the verdict plainly in its headline, framing the Bar Rescue intervention as the thing that effectively ended the venue, a rare case where the show itself is blamed for the closing. The death-metal bar is gone, and the tropical concept Taffer installed over it could not hold the room together. Confidence on the closure is high, anchored to a real local outlet.
Sources
Confidence: high. Last checked 2026-07-19.