Statistics / Survival

Clear two years and the odds flip

A Bar Rescue bar's life is decided early: nearly 6 in 10 dated closures happen within two years of the episode airing. But clear the two-year mark and the picture flips — about two-thirds of those bars are still open today, and more than half are on track to pass ten years. Filter the whole record below and watch the curve move.

The survival explorer

Era

Region

Name

284 bars · 142 dated closures · 11 undated excluded — curve computed over the 273 bars with known timing.

Shaded band: 95% confidence interval. Bars still being followed at year 0: 273 · year 2: 164 · year 5: 94 · year 10: 41. The curve stops at the last year with at least 10 bars still being followed.

76.6%Still trading at 1 yr · CI 71.1–81.2

68.3%Still trading at 2 yrs · CI 62.3–73.6

51.0%Still trading at 5 yrs · CI 44.3–57.2

37.8%Still trading at 10 yrs · CI 30.8–44.7

5.41 yrsMedian survival (Kaplan–Meier)

Reached year 2 — 164 bars64.6% CI 57.1–71.5

106 of the 164 bars that reached year 2 are still open (64.6%).

Reached year 5 — 94 bars76.6% CI 67.1–84.0

72 of the 94 bars that reached year 5 are still open (76.6%). For the year-2 cohort, Kaplan–Meier survival at ten years is 55.3% [45.7–63.9] — its median lifespan is not reached: more than half are projected past the entire observation window.

The eras, measured fairly

Raw "still open" rates mostly measure how long each era has had to die. Survival to the same horizon is the fair comparison — here, two years:

Seasons 1–3 — 58 bars74.1% CI 60.8–83.5

Seasons 4–6 — 114 bars59.6% CI 50.1–68.0

Seasons 7–10 — 100 bars76.8% CI 66.8–84.1

Era	Survive 1 yr	Survive 5 yrs	KM median
Seasons 1–3	79.3% [66.5–87.7]	53.4% [39.9–65.2]	6.86 yrs
Seasons 4–6	71.1% [61.8–78.5]	44.7% [35.5–53.6]	3.90 yrs
Seasons 7–10	82.7% [73.6–88.9]	57.6% [41.4–70.8] ⚠	6.20 yrs

⚠ Seasons 7–10 at five years rests on only 12 bars still being followed; the full-follow-up cross-check gives 48.0% [30.0–66.5] (12 of 25). No season 7–10 bar has ten years of follow-up, so no ten-year figure is published for that era.

Association — not proof of causeThe middle era is lowest at every horizon, but the intervals overlap — read it as a pattern, not a proof. Era bundles together bar selection, production changes and filming-to-broadcast lag.

When the risk lands

Shares of the 142 dated closures, by time since the episode aired. The risk is massively front-loaded, with a long flat tail.

Before airing22

0–1 yr41

1–2 yrs21

2–3 yrs13

3–5 yrs23

5+ yrs22

Three medians, three different questions

"Median lifespan" is three different statistics on this site. Each is labelled with the population it describes — they are never interchangeable.

1.86 yrs

Bars that closed after airing (n = 120)

The median lifespan among post-air closures — the site's long-standing headline figure, now labelled. It excludes the 22 bars that closed before broadcast.

1.24 yrs

All dated closures (n = 142)

The same median with the pre-air closures folded in.

5.41 yrs

All bars — Kaplan–Meier median

The typical bar's survival time, counting bars still open as "at least this long". A different question, and the honest headline for the whole record.

Precision: 124 of the 142 closure dates are month-precise; 18 are year-only and sit at 1 July of their year (± ~6 months). Follow-up is censored at the build date.

Still running

The longest-running rescues still trading, years since their episode aired.

Champs Sports Pub15.1

Canyon Saloon15.1

Bamboo Beach Club14.3

The O14.2

The Public House14.2

Champs Sports Pub (Burbank, CA) and Canyon Saloon (Yorba Linda, CA) lead at 15.14 and 15.12 years.

Methods in brief: lifespan is air date → closure date; open bars are censored at their current tenure. Era cohorts exclude the Lost Episode (counted in "All"). The explorer recomputes the same Kaplan–Meier estimates in your browser from per-bar data. Back to the overview →