Endorsement: The Jim
BY JOEY SWEENEY | When it’s half full or better, The Jim — the newest offering from Philly publicans Fergie Carey and Jim McNamara — is like the Star Wars bar inside your brain. It’s one room, and it’s just the bar, with all the characters (or thoughts) in a given moment, and beyond it, nothing but a few clean white tile walls and the exit. The bar is in the shape of a horseshoe, but it feels like a ring. This means it has minimal staff (food by Tony Rim either has just or will be launching any day now), and vibe in abundance, especially late in the evenings when the light is low and red.
As to what happens inside The Jim as public brain: Conversations don’t generally happen across the bar, but I wouldn’t rule it out; side by side for sure, though. Every vista in here resembles a Last Supper-esque group of drinkers, and that casts a spell here that’s so endearing and true that you could lose time in here all together. In fact, I have. Twice so far.
In so many ways, The Jim is doing what corner bars have done in this city for over a hundred years; other, less-new bars like the Friendly Lounge and Pen & Pencil do this, too — they literally make the world go away. But The Jim, for now at least, has an advantage: It’s new. And they almost kinda don’t make ‘em like this anymore. (Because nothing in Philadelphia is ever entirely new, it was something before it became this: for 50 years, it was JC’s Chinese Restaurant.)
And if it feels like you’ve been there before, you have: for years, in your thoughts.
The Jim, 1701 S 8th St, Philadelphia, PA 19148.
