Culpeper family has old snack bar restored as birthday gift

CULPEPER

Birthday gifts are always a tough call, especially for adults.

And by the time a man reaches 80, he pretty much has what he needs, which makes gift selection even harder.

For weeks, Collis Jenkins and his mother, Pauline, considered any number of gifts they might give his father and her husband for his 80th birthday.

They settled on a piece of the past.

Sixty-two years ago, at the age of 18, Collis C. "Baby Jim" Jenkins opened a snack bar in a small alley on North Main Street in Culpeper. It was the town's first fast-food carry-out establishment and was housed in a small used aluminum trailer that Jenkins bought in Northern Virginia for $1,000.

Baby Jim's Snack Bar became so successful that it quickly outgrew its home, and in 1955 Jenkins moved his business to the basement of a large house about a block away.

That eliminated the need for the aluminum trailer. It was moved to a farm that Jenkins owned, where it sat in the woods for years until it was moved to another farm.

Its days as a fast-food establishment forever gone, the 8-foot-by-9-foot structure ceased to have any practical purpose. Still, the trailer where Jenkins began a prosperous business had great sentimental value, so it wasn't discarded.

At some point, however, even sentiment wanes, and the structure where Baby Jim dished out hamburgers and hot dogs to hungry customers was turned into a henhouse.

But now the original Baby Jim's Snack Bar has experienced a rebirth.

Three weeks ago, the structure was hauled from the woods to The Sign Shop, where owner Mark Hayes was asked to bring this piece of history to life again.

"We had talked about fixing it up for several years," Collis Jenkins said. "With my father's 80th birthday coming up [on Sept. 16], this was the time."

Hayes estimates that about 100 man-hours went into the restoration project to get it ready for the town's Fourth of July parade.

The refurbished snack bar has a new sink, a new counter and new electrical fixtures. The frame and the roof, however, are original.

And Hayes, who redid the sign at the current Baby Jim's Snack Bar, used his talents to make the old trailer more colorful than it was when new.

The project was completed without Baby Jim's knowledge, with the idea of surprising the snack bar's founder when the trailer appeared in the parade.

The trick, however, was getting him there for the event.

"He knew we [had] a float in the parade, so I asked him to come and see it," Collis Jenkins said.

"But he doesn't like crowds, so we weren't sure if we're going to get him there," his mother added.

Well, when all else fails, resort to outright trickery, and that's what the family did. They persuaded one of his friends, Armstead Banks, to take him to Main Street where he would have a front-row seat.

The float not only featured the refurbished snack bar but also picnic tables with a number of Baby Jim's past and present employees sitting on them. Among them was George Bryson, Baby's first employee, who began work at the age of 12.

"My dad was so surprised," the younger Jenkins said afterward. "It took him a few seconds to figure out what was going on, but when he did, the biggest smile came over his face. We got it all on videotape."

Now that the birthday surprise is over, what will happen to the original snack bar?

First, it will be featured in the town of Culpeper's 250th anniversary parade on Sept. 19. Then it could become a museum of sorts.

"We may put it on display in our parking lot beside the picnic tables," Jenkins said.

And if that doesn't work, the Jenkins family may place it in the yard (facing Main Street) just behind their house and above the current snack bar.

Either way, this piece of Culpeper's history will be on public display.

After 54 years, the original Baby Jim's Snack Bar will soon be on Main Street again.