Jim Carlson Celebrates 50 Years in Food & Bar Business

Jim Carlson said that he liked the challenge of running a bar. In 1962, he owned and operated the Silver Moon in Sioux City. Beer was 25 cents and shots were 35 cents. It was the first year that liquor by the drink was legalized in Iowa since the end of prohibition. But Carlson came back to Northwest Missouri, where he still had friends and family, in 1965. There, he took over the Dew Drop Inn in Parnell in 1965. Then, he bought the old hotel building from Jim and Mabel Henderson. Carlson and Pat Beatty remodeled it and the Dew Drop Inn became the Long Branch in July 1971. Carlson owned and operated the Long Branch until February 1972, when he sold it to Donna and Phillip Berg and took over the bar in Albany, which he ran until 1985. In 1979, Carlson brought the Grant City bar on the southwest corner of the Square and for a time, ran both the Grant City and Albany taverns. Last decade, Carlson closed Grant City for a couple of years, thinking he was going to retire; however, he changed his mind and reopened it after remodeling it. Carlson said that the biggest changes were the higher prices for food and drinks as well as the rules, regulations, and hoops that one had to jump through. Last weekend, Carlson celebrated 50 years in the food and bar business with free food, music, and entertainment.