'That Reality Bar' Is a Sports Bar for Reality-TV Fans
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
If you want to catch the NBA finals, there's a sports bar waiting for you on every corner. But what if you're trying to catch up on some equally exciting television, like the Vanderpump Rules tell-all or the start of the new season of The Bachelor?
Enter "That Reality Bar," a New York City pop-up event founded by co-creators (and best friends) Syd Robinson and Dara Potts. The two saw a hole in the market ahead of the Vanderpump Rules Season 10 finale in May and decided to do something about it.
"'This is our Super Bowl' has been the tagline going around [about the finale]," Potts told Parade. "We were like, 'Oh my god, it would be so fun if we could watch Vanderpump at a bar.'"
They reached out to spots in the New York City area and found a partnership with Endswell in Brooklyn, where they've since hosted four events (one for the Vanderpump finale and three for the show's very rowdy reunion episodes).
"We have line ups around the corner and I'll have my locals and regulars being like, 'What is going on tonight?'" Jason Burelle, owner of Endswell, told Parade. "I think it's really nice for the neighborhood to create this kind of scene."
The hype has been building since That Reality Bar's launch. Fans waited outside in the rain for up to two hours ahead of the first event on May 17, which was first come, first served. From there, the pop-up switched to a ticketed model—and a competitive one at that. Patrons describe refreshing their browsers as if they were scrambling for Taylor Swift tickets.
"Each Friday we would go to the website at noon and refresh, refresh, refresh until the Eventbrite was live because it literally would sell out in a minute," Claire Banderas, a That Reality Bar attendee said. "It's like the Super Bowl, if the Super Bowl only happened, like, every five years."
At the Vanderpump Rules reunion finale on June 7, customers piled into the bar, drinking cocktails and collectively cheering (and gasping) as Ariana Madix confronted Tom Sandoval and Raquel Leviss.
"This reunion you need to watch live and you need to watch it in the company of people who get it," Jacinda Taylor, another event patron, said.
View the original article to see embedded media.
For many, That Reality Bar has become a budding community.
"So many people come stag and we've had people pull us aside after the events and be like, 'Thank you so much. I came alone. I'm leaving with this group of friends. We have brunch plans," co-founder Potts said.
Now that Vanderpump Rules has finished for the season, Potts and Robinson are searching for their next move.
"I think our challenge right now is figuring out how to scale it and how to keep this momentum going," Robinson said.
Down the line, the pair hopes to expand into other reality shows, award shows and even the Met Gala. Maybe one day, they say, they'll take That Reality Bar around the country. Sounds like the start of a very meta show idea.
