'Vanderpump' rules over new cast

For Season 12, the Bravo reality series completely revamps its dramatic lineup.

- BY YVONNE VILLARREAL

LISA Vanderpump, left, with new co-stars Audrey Lingle and Venus Binkley.

(CASEY DURKIN Bravo)

Could it be? Are we about to experience the best days of our lives (again)?

On a rainy Wednesday afternoon earlier this month, West Hollywood’s SUR (an acronym for Sexy Unique Restaurant, in case you still haven't committed it to memory) is three hours away from opening its doors to fulfill another night as a fried goat cheese ball factory and selfie backdrop for Bravo superfans. But some members of its staff, dressed in the restaurant's black and mauve uniforms, are already ping-ponging through the space during a shift for their other high-profile side gig.

This new group of unknowns is the next generation of Bravo's “Vanderpump Rules.” They're in the middle of a press day inside the tourist hot spot, which, at the start of the show’s run, had been the epicenter of where drama spun out from — and they’re on the brink of either injecting new life into a strained reality franchise or being another example of a reboot gone wrong.

“I bartend tonight from 6:30 p.m. until 11,” Venus Binkley says, with an exaggerated eye roll, as he settles in for an interview. “I don’t want to work. I hate working. I want to do anything other than work. If you're here, you're here to be a star.”

A spinoff of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” “Vanderpump Rules” launched in 2013, giving a peek into the messy and absurd shenanigans of SUR’s youngish waitstaff who all dreamed of life beyond the lounge’s ornately-decorated walls. Like the wives before it, the show made household names of its cast — Ariana Madix, Katie Maloney, Scheana Shay, LaLa Kent, James Kennedy, Raquel Leviss and the two Toms (Schwartz and Sandoval); Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute and Jax Taylor, too - at least, in Bravo-watching homes.