It’s 8 p.m. on Tuesday evening at Roosterfish in West Hollywood. The tables have been claimed for hours, the standing room area is packed, and those in line are being turned away because the bar is at capacity. Is there a celebrity DJ taking over? Or maybe there’s a big game?
Nope, Love Island USA is on, and everyone’s here to watch.
Reality TV may have been considered a guilty pleasure for many, but the Love Island USA watch parties popping off around Southern California prove that’s a notion of the past. Even tennis star Coco Gauff is in on the fun, sharing a video of her and other attendees’ reactions to a recent recoupling ceremony. “This is my Super Bowl,” says Gauff. “I feel like my team just won!” Fans in the comments pointed out that she had also just won the French Open.
@cocogauff ya’ll tried, I feel alive, nicolandria in
! #nicolandria #loveislandusa
While karaoke and trivia nights are ubiquitous on the bar scene, Maddy Bieble wanted the same communal approach to reality TV taking over local pub screens. Enter Reality Bar.
In 2021, while watching The Bachelorette with some friends, she thought to herself, “Why can’t I do this at a restaurant?” So on a night out at the Founders Ale House in Los Angeles, she convinced the staff to let her put on the hit reality show. The guys who were seated next to them also watched the show and asked if they could join.
Around this time, Bieble started working in digital marketing. One of the clients was looking for a way to attract people to their rooftop spot in West Hollywood on weekdays. She pitched the concept of watching the season 5 premiere of Love Island USA. “I was like, ‘Tom, I have an idea we should try. You need some weekday programming. Let’s see what happens.’”
While Bieble has grown the concept to extend to other shows like Survivor, Big Brother and the Challenge, this summer the event took on a new life thanks to the power of social media. Videos of fans attending Reality Bar watch parties for Love Island USA began going viral, all while Bieble was on a trip to Rome, which she cut short to return home to keep up with the demand of the growing business.
Love Island Tuesdays at The Palm & The Pine in Hollywood quickly expanded into nightly airings of the show across West Hollywood, Santa Monica, The Valley and more. For the season 7 finale of Love Island USA and the premiere of Love Island: Beyond the Villa, Reality Bar already has 8 locations throughout Los Angeles where fans can gather to watch the show. Recently dumped islanders have even made an appearance, with Charlie Georgiou and Austin Shepard surprising fans at a watch party in Hollywood.
In the two years since launching Reality Bar, Bieble has noticed how the watch parties offer a space for people to make new friends over a shared interest, something that can be challenging for young adults in a big city like Los Angeles. “We have a really incredible community that comes out and they’ve formed friend groups coming to the watch parties,” said Bieble. “I think that these kinds of spaces are so important, and I’m so happy to be trying to create them.”
But the watch parties aren’t just benefiting the fans of the shows; they’re also helping local businesses. Many bars and restaurants in Los Angeles are still recovering from the pandemic and are seeking ways to attract more customers on weekdays. Reality Bar helps bring in a room full of people to stop by and grab a drink, on a night they might otherwise stay home.
Attending a Reality Bar watch party is like going to a sports bar to watch the game—you cheer on your team, boo when it doesn’t go your way and discuss the crazy plays you just witnessed with nearby patrons.
- Also see: He got his first passport to go on Love Island USA, now viewers want to make him a travel influencer
The show is unique among other reality TV shows, as it airs in real-time with new episodes released every day except Wednesdays. On top of that, viewers have a say in which couples stay on the show and which islanders are at risk of being dumped from the island through periodic viewer votes on the Love Island USA app.
The original UK version of the show began airing in 2015 and was actually a spinoff from a 2005-2006 version of the series, with celebrities competing for the $100k grand prize. The Love Island USA spin-off premiered on CBS in 2019. It later moved to the NBC streaming service Peacock for its fourth season in 2022.
While its more recognizable phrases, such as “a hot new bombshell has entered the villa” and “I’ve got a text!”, have been pop culture slang for some time, it wasn’t until last season that the US version of the show reached global success.
First, Ariana Madix, of Vanderpump Rules fame and an avid fan of the franchise, was named the new host of the show, bringing in her fan base as new viewers. Next, many moments from the show went viral on social media, and the online discussion made it a can’t-miss live television viewing experience.
As the show returned in June for its seventh season, so did those fans, eager to relive the fun from the previous summer. That’s where Reality Bar comes in, with its pop-up viewing parties throughout Los Angeles.