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Restaurant notes: Downey's to get a makeover

Spike TV will feature the landmark.

Downey's, which has sat at Front and South Streets since Jimmy Carter was in the White House, is one of two Philly bars to undergo a makeover as part of a new Spike TV series, Bar Rescue.

The show sends Miami-based bar/resto consultant Jon Taffer -- whose "Taffer Dynamics" system places him squarely in the Gordon Ramsay hardball league -- to sagging operations.

Downey's will close on Tuesday, May 10 for the work, and will reopen at 9 p.m. Thursday, May 12 to the oohing and ahhing and drinking public.

The episode is due to be televised "this summer," Spike tells me.

Updated: Vince Frankowski of Swanky Bubbles says his bar will get the treatment a week later.