Collis Jenkins, son of 'Baby Jim' Jenkins, had the eatery's original snack bar restored as a birthday gift for his dad. ROBERT A. MARTIN/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

Rolling out a flavor of the past

The original Baby Jim's is being restored--as a birthday surprise for the founder of the Culpeper snack bar

Date published: 7/4/2009

By Collis Jenkins

BY DONNIE JOHNSTON

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 it was housed in a small aluminum trailer that Jenkins bought used in Northern Virginia for $1,000.

Baby Jim's Snack Bar became so successful that it quickly outgrew its home in the alley, 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- by 9-foot metal structure ceased to have any practical purpose. Still, the trailer where Jenkins began a prosperous business had great sentimental value, so it was not discarded.

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

Then, even the chickens abandoned the structure, which had by now really fallen on hard times.

But those days are past and now the original Baby Jim's Snack Bar has experienced a rebirth.

Three weeks ago, the aluminum and steel 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 says. "With my father's 80th birthday coming up [on Sept. 16], this was the time."

A COLORFUL REBIRTH

For Hayes, it was a rush job, to say the least, because Collis wanted the trailer completed in time for this afternoon's Fourth of July parade in Culpeper.

"Baby Jim's" real name is Collis Clifford Jenkins Jr. and he was the baby of the family. For some unknown reason, his older siblings began calling him Jim, hence Baby Jim. Jenkins began working in his brother Melvin's Culpeper Diner and saw a need for a carry-out hamburger and hot dog establishment in the town. The original snack bar had a grill and a sink, but no deep fryer. The 1947 menu consisted of only four items--hot dogs, hamburgers, barbecue and ham-and-egg sandwiches. Baby's mother, Verna Dodson Jenkins, and 12-year-old George Bryson were his first employees. The original snack bar was built in Glendale, Calif. Jenkins added a small room onto the back for a freezer and storage. The original Baby Jim's was open from 9 a.m. until midnight (or later) seven days a week. In the beginning, Baby Jim offered charge accounts to businesses so employees could eat now and settle up on payday. According to Pauline Jenkins, the only artifacts left from the original snack bar are one salt shaker, several old Coke bottles and the Coca-Cola cooling box, which is also being restored.

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Date published: 7/4/2009

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