barMystery Diners · Season 1, Episode 1 · Aired December 14, 2011
Maeve's Residuals
Studio City, California
Still going, now under a new name. It now goes by Residuals Tavern.
On the show
Season 1, Episode 1 · December 14, 2011 · bar
employee theft sting: bartender suspected of theft
What happened after
Dive bar at 11042 Ventura Blvd now operates as Residuals Tavern; site shows the same address, active daily 12pm-2am hours, and 2026 review activity referenced in search snippets.
What happened on the show
Maeve McNamara ran this Studio City dive bar and, as the series opener tells it, suspected a newly hired bartender of pouring too freely and tipping himself out of the register. She brought the problem to Charles Stiles, whose surveillance crew wired the room and sent mystery diners Shellene and Jessica in as ordinary customers. On the hidden cameras the bartender, Rod, drinks through his shift, ignores the regulars, and rings up roughly twelve dollars for a tab that should have run past a hundred and twenty. The episode builds to Maeve firing him and tipping his jar back into the register, Rod insisting on the way out that he was only building her a clientele. Like every case Stiles filmed, this plays as reality television first. The series would later face broad allegations that its stings were scripted, so the beats are best read as aired rather than as documented fact.
After the cameras left
Mystery Diners never set out to rescue these rooms, and this one did not need it. The bar at 11042 Ventura Boulevard carried on and now trades as Residuals Tavern, still keeping late daily hours as of our 2026 check, the old Maeve's Residuals name surfacing mainly as venue history. Call it an ordinary evolution rather than a turnaround, a functioning neighborhood bar that changed its sign and kept pouring.
Sources
Confidence: medium. Last checked 2026-07-19.
What is there now
Street imagery via Google Maps. Location approximate.