Where Everybody Knows Your Name | 34th Street Magazine

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

The Staying Power of Smoke's: How a campus bar became a 'Pennstitution'

By Maxine Mendoza

Posted on Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 2:59 am

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Melanie Lei

This Issue 11/13/2008

“C’mere, this is how it happened,” began Joe Kelly, bartender at Smokey Joe’s since 1962. He leaned down close to the bar, about to recall one of the establishment’s many legendary tales.

This one involved former President Harry S. Truman, Smoke’s and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

As Kelly tells it, President Truman, along with his group of Secret Servicemen, was on campus sometime in the early 1960s to deliver a speech at Irvine Auditorium. At 10 o’clock in the morning, the former president, waiting at the Faculty Club bar, had a hankering for a shot of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. But, “just by luck,” the bar was out of the requested liquor. Not one to be daunted, Truman set out for Smokey Joe’s instead. “He took a good shot of it,” recalled Kelly, with a roguish smile.

The next day, a Smoke’s bartender, having heard that the president had come in for a shot of whiskey, refused to believe the story. He scolded his co-worker for misplacing a bottle of liquor. That is, until the next issue of The Daily Pennsylvanian proved that Truman had, in fact, been on campus. According to Kelly, the bartender quickly changed his tone. “You better not have thrown that bottle away,” he allegedly said. “You should’ve gotten him to sign it! We would have put it up in here on the wall!”

Kelly provides wisdom and stories as readily as he does lager. And there are many stories to tell when it comes to Smoke’s.

Contrary to popular belief, its name is not an homage to the two bartenders who both bear the name Joe. Rather, it preceded these men, having originated in the 1920s, during the Prohibition period. It is believed that the bar is named for the man purported to be its original owner, Claire Smoker, of whom little else is known, according to current co-owner Paul Ryan. Because drinking or selling alcohol was illegal at the time, Smoke’s was originally a waffle and pancake house on 36th Street, serving up breakfast to students and locals.

A bar since 1933, Smoke’s has moved around over the years and only came to its current spot on South 40th Street in 1978. This location, now lodged between The Marvelous record shop and Radio Shack, retains much of the original wood paneling, furniture and artwork from the bar’s earliest days. Part of its timeless charm is due in large part to the bartenders, many of whom have been a part of the Smoke’s family for decades.

One of these beloved bartenders is Kelly, 81. On a rainy Saturday afternoon, Joe recalled fond memories over a pint of Yuengling Lager, the bar’s most popular brew. Kelly has spent most of his life in the Philadelphia area, “with the exception of my time in the service,” he explained. Joe served in World War II and the Korean War, and was part of the military occupation in the 1948 Palestine War. But, quipped Kelly, with a twinkle in his eye, “The toughest battle was World War IV: that’s when I got married.”