The Brixton

What happened after

Punk-themed bar at 1412 E 6th St, opened 2009; kept 'The Brixton' name (after an initial post-rescue 'Rocket Room 6' rebrand reverted). Closed March 2020; space later became 'Low Down Lounge' (from the Shangri-La bar team).

Closure date on record: 2020-03

What happened on the show

Taffer had more than a bar to fix at The Brixton, a punk-themed room on East 6th Street in Austin, because the husband running it was the problem in the flesh. Belligerent, insulting to the customers, and unable to make even a proper drink, he was actively threatening everything he and his partner had worked to build, turning a promising concept into a liability every time he stepped behind the bar. The rescue worked to defuse the owner and rebuild the fundamentals underneath him, from the pours to the way the room treated the people paying to be there. Taffer reopened it as Rocket Room 6, a full rebrand meant to signal a break from the reputation the husband had earned it. In a pattern the series had already seen, though, the couple reverted to the Brixton name by the end of the episode, making it the fourth bar to reject its rebrand in the epilogue and keep the identity Taffer had tried to leave behind.

After the cameras left

Keeping the Brixton name carried the bar for years. The punk room, opened in 2009, closed in March 2020, after which the space was reworked by the team behind the Shangri-La bar into a new venue, Low Down Lounge. The closure is well documented: MapQuest tags the address closed and a French-locale Yelp mirror shows it shuttered as of June 2024, with Eater Austin having covered the closing. Confidence is high, the address alive again under different owners.