PEORIA MAGAZINE June 2022

M O M A N D P O P

ICONIC IRISH BAR REACHES ITS RUBY ANNIVERSARY It’s still all good and all green at family-run, family-friendly Jimmy’s

BY PHIL LUCIANO PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

W ho goes to Jimmy’s Bar? Owner Jimmy Spears could drop name after name from the legion of celebrities who have dropped by. He also could brag about international attention sparked intentionally (through a strong relationship with Peoria’s sister city in Ireland) and accidentally (via the bizarre kidnapping of a bar-top Elvis Presley bust). But if you ask Spears about the heart and success of Jimmy’s Bar – the 40th anniversary of which he celebrates this summer —he first and foremost gushes about familiar faces. “I can’t say enough about my family and friends,” says Spears, 67. “Without them, there’d be no Jimmy’s Bar.” He means that in two ways. One is practical: Over the years, his payroll has included scores of relatives manning the bar and kitchen. The other is convivial: While Jimmy’s hosts a boisterous Bradley University crowd come nightfall, the daytime clientele involves a dedicated and jocular core of longtime regulars. That’s been the thriving mix for four decades, a duration that is a rarity in

man, he’d also tended bar at the Lariat Club and elsewhere. In 1982, thinking his mixology expertise could pay off as a second career, he and a partner bought and overhauled the Loading Dock. “We gutted the place,” Spears recalls. “The floors were rotted. The walls had carboard in them.” With the new look came a new name, Jimmy’s Bar. He began to festoon every inch of the walls and ceiling with odds and ends, mostly from his father, Joe. Indeed, sports gear (a Marcus Pollard football jersey, a hurling stick) and mementoes (a Mike Ditka autographed 8-by-10, a 2013 Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup tapestry) make for much of the décor. But also fighting for space are beer signs (heavy on Guinness), Irish homage (including a neon shamrock) and music memorabilia (such as a Robertson Fieldhouse handbill touting a Jimmy Buffett show). The atmosphere is familiar, if evolving. Over the years, Spears—who bought out his partner in the 1990s —has extended the footprint of the pub to include an outdoor area, a patio deck and other seating. Plus, though the house beverage is decidedly the $5 Guinness draft – at times, the saloon has been the top seller of the Irish stout in downstate Illinois

the food-and-drink industry. According to the National Restaurant Association, almost one in three restaurants fail in their first year. Only 20 percent survive past five years, according to CNBC. Jimmy’s, at 2601 W. Farmington Road, has enjoyed a long roadhouse legacy. Spears believes the first business there appeared in the late 19th century as a two-story stagecoach stop, with food and drink available on the first floor and lodging upstairs. Afterward, the property changed hands among bar owners. The original structure burned down in the 1950s, leaving only the foundation. A new building arose, dubbed the Loading Dock, carrying that name among multiple owners into the early 1980s. That’s when Spears entered the picture. The Peoria native and Bradley business grad was employed in sales at Melton Electric in Bartonville, a job he’d hold for 40 years. But as a young

16 JUNE 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE