By Cole Boehler
No one ought to be as jolly as Jim Walker is on a cold December Monday morning. But there it is: he's joking and jiving, quipping and laughing with great gusto as he gets open his joint, Jimbo's Junction City Saloon in Custer.
Maybe he's this manic because just three days before he ordered a new Harley Davidson Road King to replace the 1997 model with 78,000 miles whose engine he toasted last summer.
Maybe its because he's getting rich in the bar business and has found it one of the easiest vocations around, do you suppose? Yes, quite unlikely.
Perhaps its because he simply comes by this sunny, upbeat disposition naturally, congenitally: it's simply in his make-up.
Whatever. If you want to do some chuckling, any time of the year, any time of the day, pay a call on Jim.
Coming from the east, we had been operating on Central Time for several days and though it was well before noon, Jim didn't flinch when we ordered up a Natchos Supreme which was the day's lunch special. He figuratively put on his cook's hat, then disappeared into the kitchen, only to return a few minutes later. The order was quick, amply fed two of us and was delicious.
He tells us business at Jimbo's is split fairly equally between the food and beverage sides of the operation. He also notes there is another restaurant and another saloon in this town of 400 between Billings and Forsyth, which generates good, but friendly, competition.
So how does a youngish bachelor wind up in the essentially rural, rugged hill country along the Yellowstone River at the junction of Highways 47 and I-90?
Well, Walker's father, George, managed the Scoop in Bozeman (Jim's hometown) for 25 years, and owned the Fishtail in Townsend for awhile, too. He says his mother, Linda, tended bar "all her life" as well.
"I just grew up around it," he says.
In addition, there was also an incremental and linear learning process for Walker that goes back nearly two decades to when he attended Red Rock College in Golden, Colo. where he earned an associate's degree in passive solar science. While he studied and he attended classes, he worked part-time tending bar.
Never putting the degree to use (though he says solar is making a comeback), he then managed the Whisky Jack in Big Sky from 1990 to 1997. He followed up that stint with four years at MacKenzie River Pizza. Finally, he managed a bar in Sturgis, So. Dak., for a year, which dovetailed nicely with his passion for Harley Davidsons.
After learning what he could at the previous career stops, it was logical that he strike out on his own to become educated in the ownership aspects.
Divorced in 2001 ("for the rest of my life," he says with a laugh) and with no children, he eyed three properties: one in Livingston, another in Two-Dot and the Junction City Saloon, as it was known then, in Custer.
A lot went into his deliberations, he says, including a desire to own the real estate and wanting to be adjacent to the interstate highway. Ultimately, it was Custer where he decided to stake his claim. Besides, he got in at a good price with the bank holding the paper ready to cut a deal and help him along. Of course, he also used the equity in a Bozeman home to secure the transaction. Five years later he's close to owning it free and clear.
"I was told a long time ago, with credit you can own the world," he says, laughing once again. He adds he has no regrets about his decision.
A lot of hours, grit and sweat have gotten him to this point. He is pulling a double shift this day, apparently nothing out of the ordinary. He relies on three part-time helpers, including his mother, but allows that staffing is his chief challenge, as it is for every hospitality business, he quickly adds.
The place is clean and laid out in an efficient and orderly manner. In fact, it is getting a "face-lift" in the coming week, Walker says, with the help of his new gaming machine vendor, Amusement Services out of Billings. The place will be sporting all new chairs and tables, new gaming machines and a new juke box, he says.
Jimbo's features an ATM, pool table, three conventional video amusement games, four gambling machines and three modern televisions including a dandy flat-screen that must be 38 inches wide.
For a small restaurant/pub, Jimbo's posts a fairly extensive menu of appetizers, soups and salads, sandwiches and full dinners including barbecue pork ribs, herb-roasted chicken, lasagna, a 12-ounce ribeye and more.
"We do a pretty good dinner business," he says, "especially weekends" when specials such as ribeye steak with garlic brandy cream sauce are available. Or consider the Alfredo or a blackened pork chop. He says the lasagne has made him somewhat famous in these parts, too.
The traffic from interstate 90 feeds the place about 40 percent of its business in the summer months, Jim estimates, but only about 20 percent during the winter. Hunting season brings in new and valuable customers, too, he notes.
"The rest is all from local trade," he says. "They treat me real well. They spread their loyalty around to the businesses that are here."
It also has four draught beer tap handles including Moose Drool ("this is as far east as you'll find it"), Killian's, Blackfoot's Scottish Ale and one mystery tap that has a Bronco's handle.
This is a pretty straight forward bar whose clientele has fairly simple tastes in their beverages, Jim explains, "though I do have a pretty good micro-beer crowd."
The Junction City Saloon hasn't a single theme. Rather, it has a number of them: Motorcycles (Harley Davidson), football (Denver Broncos) and music (rock and roll).
In fact, he explains, he has a standing $50 bet with a customer on the Broncos whenever they play the Raiders. This morning he shelled out $50 as the Raiders had waxed the Broncos the previous day.
Harley and Bronco memorabilia are scattered throughout the 50-foot by 50-foot interior. Along one wall is a large glass-covered display case featuring rock and roll posters, ticket stubs and more gathered from hundreds of music events Jim has attended over the years.
Sporting longish locks himself, he admits when he first came to this agricultural community, "the farmers didn't really know what to make of me," then he laughs. But apparently this rabid football fan also possessed good small-town Montana instincts.
"I went to the first home football game, introduced myself around, then asked what I could do. They said, 'Hmmm, we need a game announcer,' so I became the 'Golden Voice of the Custer Cougars' the next week," Jim says with another laugh.
"They even said I could park my Harley on the 50-yard line. Of course, we have six-man football with an 80-yard field so there is no a 50-yard line!"
He says he has called Class C All-Star games (every other year in Custer bringing in 800-1,000 players and fans) and two playoff games, but never a state championship, which he would obviously relish.
"We played for the championship in Geraldine in 2003," he recalls. "We lost 80-78 in overtime. It was the best football game I've ever seen in my life."
Jim feeds the all-star players every day--gratis--while they're in town practicing and playing. He throws a pig roast in conjunction with the big game and helps put on a golf tournament, too. And he's promised all Custer players a free cheeseburger and fries whenever they win a home game. "We only lost three games the first year I was here," he says wryly.
"We revolve around sports."
And motorcycle poker runs.
"We organize a run the last Sunday of every month," he says. "We have around 60 riders and we make seven stops (making sure to include his competition) with an after-party. We pay back 100 percent of the money we raise for first, second and third place."
Even the owners of small-town establishments have to do their part in safeguarding their investment, Walker says. This means belonging to and, more importantly, participating in local and state business associations in order to have the political clout to affect change, or stave off attacks, locally and at the state level.
He is one of the active members in the Rosebud/Treasure Tavern Association which, he says, has 14 "very active members (we need some more from Hardin)" in Custer, Rosebud, Forsyth, Colstrip, Lame Deer and Hardin.
"I think our association may be the biggest geographically but the smallest financially," he says, then lauds one of the "Deans" of the local and state tavern associations, Jack Snyder of Buff's Bar in Forsyth. "He's the best," Walker says simply.
So how does a bar in Custer get tagged with "Junction City?"
"The original town was called Junction City --at the junction of the Yellowstone and Bighorn. It was over on the other side of the river," he explains. "It got flooded out so they moved it over to this side and across the railroad grade," which created a protective dike.
"I've been trying to get the locals to rename the town 'Junction City' but I'm not finding much interest," he says chuckling. "I even offered to donate $50 if they'd rename the high school field 'Junction City Stadium,'" he says, laughing some more.
One disadvantage - or is it advantage? - to living and operating a business in a small, rural Montana community is you have to make regular treks into neighboring bigger cities for supplies.
"Thursdays I go to Billings," he explains. "And Thursday night is my night for booze, dinner and to try to 'find the one.'"
Where would he like to be in five years?
"In another bar, maybe in a bigger town further west," he says. "This one's for sale. It would be ideal for a couple, but they'd have to get along."
And maybe he'll find a business where he could have the time to further indulge his love of free-wheeling on a big-inch Milwaukee twin.
He's been riding motorcycles since high school, cutting his teeth on Triumphs, Yamahas--anything that would run--"and Harleys since I could afford one," he says.
He makes an annual pilgrimage to Sturgis for the Motor Classic where he and 10 high school buddies own a cabin just outside Sturgis and Deadwood.
Incidentally, that '97 Harley Jim rode for 10 years and whose motor let go last summer? Well, he says it's been rebuilt, repainted and is for sale, and when he cashes out of it, he will pick up his gleaming new machine.
He says, "It's always a good day when you get a new Harley."
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, January, 2008, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.