So long, Jack's

There’s a whole long list anyone can come up with that marks, for them, the clock of their lives ticking away. Leaves change color in the fall (at least some do further north). Crow’s feet appear at the corner of eyes. A step somehow gets lost, and we notice it when we play tennis or basketball or simply walk around the block, even though we have no idea where it went. An accounting begins of all the things that have come and gone, all the people of blessed memory, all the friends with whom we have lost connection, all the favorite haunts that have changed, been torn down. And yes, in the most shallow ways, we may think about the restaurants and foods we used to enjoy that no longer exist — the burgers at Medine’s, the poppy seed ring at Ronnie’s, the violinist with the sad eyes at Charley’s Steakhouse, and perhaps a little more obscurely, the smoke coming out of the chimney at Jack’s (originally Jack-Benny’s) Barbecue in Minneola.

“If we ain’t smoking we ain’t open.” That was the longtime tagline at Jack’s. For more than 70 years my family ate at Jack’s. While the chicken and turkey and pork were very good (sorry, this may not be a very kosher column), the ribs were outstanding, the barbecue sauce unique and special, and the baked beans were the best in the world. Inside Jack’s the roof was lined with thousands of baseball caps, including two different ones from Polo Park, the community my father began and I completed. Pictures of local celebrities were on the walls, and my father’s portrait hung beside one of Lawton Chiles, the ex-governor of Florida. One of my father’s minor claims to fame was that he was one of a handful of people, years ago, who had a charge account at Jack’s. And there was no place that was a bigger fan of the Florida Gators football team than Jack’s. We knew people who would drive the long way to Gainesville up US 27 just to stop there and load up on chicken, ribs, and beans for tailgating parties on Gameday. 

We had our own family traditions there. When I was growing up our Thanksgiving turkey was always smoked at Jack’s, and it was always delicious. When we went out to the groves we’d bring home lunch from Jack’s, and when the groves froze in the 1980s and we built a neighborhood on the south shore of Lake Minnehaha in Clermont, after we checked on the development and swam in the lake we’d have lunch, of course, at Jack’s. 

Now Jack’s, too, is gone. Just a couple weeks ago I read an article in the local paper that after seven decades of business, after trying to sell the restaurant and keep it open for its long-time employees, the current owners decided they could no longer stay afloat. The coronavirus had done them in. Business had fallen off to such a degree that they decided, after much heartbreak, to no longer stoke the pit, smoke the meat, bake the beans, and open the front glass door. Like so many other institutions, Jack’s said goodbye forever.

The difference, for me, is that Jack’s had been around my entire life. It’s not just that I’ll miss the barbecue sauce (we have one jar sequestered away) and the baked beans, it’s that I’ll miss awakening my memories of my father, my childhood, holidays all tied to taste buds that were, year in and year out, titillated by Jack’s, pictures of the past all tied to a singular, old-fashioned roadside joint in what was once, long ago, the heart of citrus country in Central Florida.

And as Jack’s passes, and another year passes, I can’t help but think of all the people and places and things that have also come and gone in my life — the bitter and sweet, the difficult and joyful, the celebratory and forgettable, all little more than a fragment of memory, smoke rising from an old brick smokestack and disappearing in the wind. 

So long, Jack’s. It was great while it lasted. Your end reminds me that nothing lasts forever. Everything changes, and while that’s sad, the taste it leaves in our mouths is neither bitter nor harsh. It is bittersweet, as life is bittersweet, and that, perhaps more than anything else, is a wistful vision worth holding onto in these troubled, acrimonious times.  

Shana Tova.

That’s the Good Word for this New Year. May it be a better one for all.

I’m David Bornstein. Feel free to contact me through the Heritage, or at dsb328@gmail.com.