A barbershop, a beer license, and a hundred years

Joe Jost apprentices as a barber at 12, sails for New York at 16, and never forgets his first look at the Statue of Liberty. He works his way west a barbershop at a time: New York, Chicago, Denver, Upland.

Joe marries Edith McKean in Upland, then ships out with the Army. He drives a supply wagon and serves as a foot soldier in Europe.

On Main Street, Balboa Peninsula: candy, ice cream, cigarettes, Eastside Near Beer, and billiards and poker in the back.

Joe sells Balboa and opens on Anaheim Street in Long Beach as a barbershop, pool hall and poker room. Corn cob pipes and headache remedies on the shelf.

Cold beer and sandwiches go on the menu. The Special and the pickled egg are born. The Barbering Commission decides hair and beer don’t mix, so out go the barber chairs and in come the booths, still carved with initials.

Electricity was dear, so Joe kept the lights off and flipped them on when he heard a car slow down out front.

At fifty, Joe hikes twenty miles a day with a forty-pound pack and out-fishes everyone. Joe Jr. becomes a partner at “the store,” which lets the old man disappear into the mountains for months at a time. Read the 1941 trip journal.

Dirt bikes at 75, dances at Leisure World, opera on the radio. The bar stays in the family, run by his daughter’s side and later his grandson, Ken Buck. Read Cathleen Buck’s portrait of Joe.

When Long Beach’s Marmion Co. closed after 80-odd years, Ken Buck bought the roaster. The peanuts on your table have a century behind them too.

Same room, same booths, same eggs. Cash only, same as 1924.

Jon Sweeney takes the keys from Ken Buck with one promise: don’t change the bar. The regulars own this place. We just keep it open.