Jimbo’s Place

(Quincy, IL)

Scooter’s 842nd bar, first visited in 2010.

Jimbo’s Place, recommended by the bartender at The Club, contains a tiny zig-zag shaped bar inside a circular building. It’s a very unusual layout for a bar.

When we pulled up the bartender (who was alone) had just stepped outside for a smoke. He came back in to pour us our drinks, we offered to behave ourselves so he could go back out and smoke but he wasn’t comfortable with that idea.

We told him about our travels, and when we mentioned we were from Kansas City he list up, remembering visits to a huge hospital in Kansas City when he was young. The description he gave did not ring a bell with either of us, but we later identified it as the McCleary-Thornton-Minor Hospital in Excelsior Springs, MO. So, if you’re reading this, Mr. Bartender, that’s the hospital you were thinking of!

He also gave us additional info on the history of the town. The original German immigrants had set the town up with a church and a pub on nearly every corner. During Prohibition there were as many as 120 bars or more in town. By the 1960s that number had thinned to somewhere in the 70s. He estimated that the number was in the 50s today, which fit with the estimates I had made while planning this trip.

Our conversation about the town’s history came to an abrupt halt when a very distraught woman ran into the bar and pulled the bartender away from us. After several minutes passed, during which time we channel surfed on the TV to pass the time, the two returned from the back. The woman was in tears and just when we thought she was calming down, she started yelling at us and accusing B of being a cop. The bartender tried to assure her he was no such thing, but she wouldn’t believe it. So we took that as our cue to leave.

(I don’t know what it is about B that gives off the cop vibe, but this isn’t even close to being the first time I’ve seen someone in a bar accuse him of being a cop. Or from Vice Squad. Or an FBI agent. Or an INS officer. Or a private detective. Or a sheriff’s deputy. It’s crazy!)

B channel surfs during the crisis…

601 Chestnut Street
Quincy, IL 62301
US
[launch map]
(217) 224-3361