barBar Rescue · Season 2, Episode 6 · Aired August 26, 2012
The Black Sheep
Cheviot, Ohio
Renamed since the episode, and still in business. It now goes by The Public House.
What happened after
Renamed 'The Public House' after its August 2012 Bar Rescue episode; still operating at 3807 N Bend Rd.
What happened on the show
Taffer arrived in Cheviot, Ohio, with a long list of fixes and an owner sitting on an even longer secret. The Black Sheep was an Irish-German pub whose owner had spread himself too thin across other jobs to keep it in any kind of check, and who was quietly carrying more than 800,000 dollars in loans that his own family knew nothing about. The rescue forced both problems into the open at once, the operational neglect and the hidden debt, because neither could be solved while the other stayed buried. Taffer worked to get the owner to confront the numbers and recommit to the room, then reopened the pub as The Public House, trading a scattered Irish-German concept for a clean, focused neighborhood-pub identity with a single clear purpose. The bet was that honesty about the finances, paired with a sharper concept and a more present owner, could steady a business that had been running on borrowed money and borrowed attention.
After the cameras left
The Public House stuck, and it is still pouring. The bar continues to operate under that name at 3807 North Bend Road, and its status sits at renamed rather than merely open because the Bar Rescue identity is the one that endured. Founded in 2008 by firefighter Scott Scherpenberg, it keeps an active following, with a Facebook page carrying more than 6,600 likes. The hidden debt Taffer dragged into daylight did not sink it.
Sources
Confidence: high. Last checked 2026-07-19.