Video over IP is the ideal way to go, it adds for more flexibility and large scale matrixes are becoming few and far.

You could use something along the lines of bluestream 1080p version to save some money. In a restaurant/bar atmosphere nobody will notice.

The ultra cheap way out would to use a large scale, 1x8 or 1x16, HDMI splitter extender to a secondary hdmi input on all of the televisions. Then for big events where all displays will be the same, you can have all displays on the same device so there will be no delay.

They really need to get a commercial television service before the wrong people come knocking on the doors and they end up with some fines....