The bar's new image attracts several customers, but leaves Moe's four regular customers, Homer, Lenny, Carl, and Barney, feeling alienated, which in turn prompts Homer to open his private bar, disguising it as a hunting club to avoid liquor license restrictions.

Gould based the part about Homer's bar on his father, who opened a hunting club to sell alcohol without having to acquire a liquor license.

After Homer tells a story about Bart digging a hole in the backyard for no apparent reason other than to make it deeper and bigger, Moe complains about the monotony at his tavern.

Recalling his days at Swigmore University, he decides to return there for some inspiration and leaves Homer in temporary charge of the bar.

Soon, the tavern is renovated by Formico, the self-proclaimed "Dean of Design", into a swanky nightclub renamed "M" and with a post-modern decor.

Homer and his bar-buddies Lenny, Carl and Barney find that they do not fit in with the new, affluent crowd, and miss their old tavern experience.

Arriving at the Simpsons’ home, he finds that the new garage bar has quickly become quite popular, and even has the alternative rock band R.E.M.

Homer sets out the next day to find a turkey, but Lisa and Moe scare off his quarry, using a whistle that sounds like a cougar.

and the rest of the Simpson family return to Moe's tavern, reverted to its original decor, for a Thanksgiving meal of a turkey, made "entirely of tofu and gluten" and provided by Michael Stipe, an environmentalist.

[1] In the DVD commentary for the episode, Gould says that, when the team was thinking of a way to start the show, George Meyer said, "I like how kids will just dig a hole".

[3] Gould remembered how his father opened a hunting club and could sell alcohol without having to obtain a liquor license.

Moe's new bar M is a parody of the luxury boutique hotel W New York Union Square that Gould had visited once.

[9] Ron Martin of 411Mania called the plot "unimaginative" and wrote "I suppose there's only enough episodes you can go through before Moe's has to modernize in the most hideous way".

Shaffer wrote that "Homer the Moe", "The Frying Game", "The Old Man and the Key", and "Sweets and Sour Marge" were some of the worst episodes of the whole series.