Top 126 Quotes & Sayings by Jon Taffer

I can't believe the sense of community here, the amount of pride the people who run this city have in Las Vegas. They are wonderful.

Bar owners tend to be social rather than operators. Most bar owners do not manage their numbers. They do not have spreadsheets or reports to manage their budget, cost, or inventory. I would say 90% of independent bar owners do not even have a budget.

On 'Bar Rescue,' failure is not an option. I have to try to turn the business around.

I opened my first bar that I owned in 1989. The first one I ever owned was in downtown St. Louis.

I've made stupid investments. I've made stupid decisions as an employee. I've made foolish decisions as a manager. I've gotten fired. I've lost businesses. I went through all of those things.

Excuses destroy success every time.

Honestly, if I could be anything, I'd love to be a small-business authority type of person.

Leadership cannot be taught. Either you're a leader by the time you're 12 years old, or you never will be.

I've always said that my greatest crises are my greatest opportunities to prove my own character to myself.

It's easy to be good when things are great; it's tough to be good when they're not.

What I love about Vegas is that we have the mountains and the Strip. There is always something to do.

When my company does a good job, we make people happy. They laugh, they smile, they have a good time - that's what we do for a living. Any business doing that is making a noble effort.

Rarely does a congressman stand up and defend a liquor company. Rarely does a congressman stand up and defend a bar.

I think the greatest mistakes have been my greatest lessons.

I could take a cemetery and make all the tombstones beer companies. There's a lot of craft beers that came and went. A lot of them.

If you have to signal a bartender to get a drink, then they're not looking at you, which is their problem. They're not doing their job. So don't feel rude when you signal a bartender. They're the ones who caused you to signal them. Go for it.

The infusion of technology and social marketing to bar spaces is a big opportunity.

Putting somebody else in crisis mode and causing them to make quicker decisions, urgent decisions, rather than prolonged, more logical decisions can be very advantageous. So, to be successful in business, you have to understand the power of confrontation and how to use it correctly.

People see themselves on camera. They're ashamed of the things that they do, so they have a choice: Either they accept responsibility for it, or they blame the show for it. It's a human reaction.

When I went to college, I really became interested in cultural anthropology. Our behavior isn't that different from other primate species'.

Sometimes people go into my business because they like to drink, which - that's insane.

A bar is a factory, a marketing organization, and a service organization all in one.

The simple things can be really powerful.

Leadership is a trait; it's not a skill.

When you're on-stage, you're expected to perform in the bar business. You shake hands. You smile. You're all positive energy: you add to your environment. When you walk in the door to the back of the house, that's like a stage door. You're off-stage now.

A plate of food hits the table, lands right in front of you. One of two things happens. Either you sit up and look at it and react to it, or nothing happens. If nothing happens then that restaurant is stuck in mediocrity forever.

I really was going to run for Congress.

I don't want to hire people who have less of a commitment than I do.

The wrong personality with the greatest resume in a business will not grow that business.

I'm a really happy guy. I have a great career, a wonderful wife and family.

Failure is an extremely personal thing, and so is success. The problem with people is they don't own their failure, and if you don't own your failures, you're never going to own your successes.

Nine out of ten people who are failing blame their failure on somebody else. And that is the common denominator of failure.

I'm the type of employer who will hire based on personality, based on potential. If you put the resume before the personality, you're going to fail.

If your main reason for opening a bar is to have somewhere for you and your friends to hang out, then build a bar in your basement, and stay out of the industry.

Pushing for excellence is a fight. You have to fight to hire the right employees, fight to get the supplies you need, to move line items around. Being a great manager means pushing to get those few extra inches every day. It's almost like a football game - the team that wins sometimes wins by just inches.

When I meet with people who are ineffective managers with failing businesses, I can't change what they do - I have to change the way they think.

I have a playroom with my drum set, a guitar, and amplifier at home.

My company was based in Palm Beach, Florida, but when 'Bar Rescue' took off, I knew I had to move west. It was a choice between L.A. and Vegas. I have a lot of friends in Vegas, and it became my choice. I'm so glad because I love it here. There's a real sense of community. It's a big town that feels like a small town. Everybody knows everybody.

In the worst of our recession, bars were making money. Every bar can make money. If they're failing, it's not because of the president or Congress or Ukraine. It's because of them. And if you own failure, then you'll own success.

Don't open a bar if you think all you need to be is social and greet the customers. You have to run a business.

Keeping a bar clean is basic in this business. Having a staff that speaks adequate English is basic.

I have no personal or professional regrets. I really don't.

If you can't build a relationship with your customers, you're in big trouble. If you can remember the numbers from the reports and spreadsheets you spent hours poring over in your office, but you can't picture the faces of your customers - you're in big trouble.

Human interaction is something that I believe, as humans, we crave for. And that is where bars and social environments come into play.

I think success is a relative term. If you're a caveman, success is capturing an elephant. Success is achieving better than the norm. Success is being exceptional. It's exceptional reputation, exceptional income, and exceptional respect.

Failure is an awful thing, and when I look at the common denominator of failure, it seems to always be the same thing: excuses.

Make no mistake: confrontation is unavoidable in business.

The right personality with a weak resume can be filled in. That's the employee who will become great.

If I'm your boss, and I truly want you to be successful... I'm inherently going to teach you. I'm inherently going to correct your mistakes. I'm inherently going to spend time with you. I'm inherently going to lead you.

The fact of the matter is that the most important responsibility a bar owner has is public safety and the safety of the people in it.

When I'm angry on TV, I'm actually not. I'm manipulating you as an owner.

In the bar and restaurant industry, you're always one idea away from your next quarter-million.

There has been a black hole in the bar business in Las Vegas, particularly on the Strip in tourist areas.

You ever see a bar with 200 beautiful women go broke? But I've seen a lot of bars with great DJs go broke.

When I was running the Troubadour, there was this transition from the classic singer/songwriter Jackson Browne types to bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, and Fear. Those are just some that come to mind. Oh, and Adam Ant! The Fear fans wanted to 'crush' the Ants. These guys hated each other.

The greatest gift of leadership is a boss who wants you to be successful.

I believe that every person's failure is their fault, every single time.

The Knack were a very, very powerful band, and you got to understand, when they came in, all the punk stuff was still going on. There was an amazing conflict within the scenes.

I'm a businessman, not a bartender.

The word 'mixology' adds $3 to the price of any drink.