Jimmy John’s Piping Hot: Seventy Years and Gone

I regret to inform you that Jimmy John’s burned this morning.  I know no details.  I’ve only seen one picture.  I’m not connected to the family that owns it now, although I think it’s someone from my High School.  I am crushed.

I went to Jimmy John’s with my first boyfriend, my second boyfriend, many other boyfriends,  and then with husbands one and two.  I took my son there many many many times and when he had kids, I took them there.  I used to stop there on bad days and good days because for me, a Jimmy John hot dog was a celebration and a cure and a reminder.  I would eat in - even all by myself, because I loved looking at the pictures on the walls.  Tom Mix Death Car.  American Flags.  Jimmy John outside the original little stand.   There was one picture of an auction outside a farmhouse that I really liked.  I used to bite into a meaty hot dog, chew through the skin and wonder what happened to all the people in that picture.  What happened to the stuff on the lawn?  What was a good price for an old chair, when it was just a sort of a used chair? 

I think my love of vintage cars will always be tied to the smell of hot dogs. In the late sixties and early seventies I remember sitting in the parking lot of Jimmy John’s in a brand new Shelby Mustang, right before we tore off to race on the by pass.  If you had a car or could snag a ride you would make a circuit from Big John’s (Market and Westtown) to Gino’s (West Goshen Shopping Center) to Jimmy John’s (202 South of West Chester), to Betty’s Ice Cream down to the Charcoal Pit in Delaware. If you didn’t have a curfew, you might cruise all the way back to Exon Crossroads to the Guernsey Cow and Howard Johnson’s.   We just chugged through the parking lots in our Impalas and Malibus and Falcons and  Judges and Barricudas, and Javelins, looking for friends and cars and a little trouble, not much.  Gas was 25 cents, and these cars used about a gallon to turn the engine over. You always got your gas at the Scott Station on the way into town.

Years later, with my husband Charles the train guy, we put quarters in the slots to make the trains go. We tapped on the glass and made our toddler see the train. As he got older, he could put the money in the slot himself, and he learned to be patient and share while standing in line in front of the big train layout.  I liked the little push me/pull you car, but it never stopped between the lines to give me a free hot dog or whatever.  I didn’t care. 

I always ordered two, and a small order of fries.  One hotdog would get just ketchup, the other relish, ketchup and saurkraut.  I never ordered anything else on the menu.  It just never seemed right.  The last time I was in, I was in line behind some people who ordered cheeseburgers.  I wanted to tap them on the shoulder and say, excuse me, you eat hot dogs here.  Jimmy John’s was the kind of place that made you feel proprietary. 

I hope they can rebuild.  I will try to like the new place.  I will be back for the hot dogs.  I I am kicking myself for not writing about them before this, but I was waiting.  That should be a lesson to us all.