Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

The first Street-Cobb venture was overfunded. They took over the distinguished establishment on Oak Lawn Avenue known as Joe's Snack Bar in 1971 and turned that into a bar known as J. Alfred's. Initial investment outlay--six grand. Tom Garrison, who would later open the venerable Stoneleigh P., took 10 percent of J. Alfred's. "I first met Gene when I was working for a mortgage company and Gene was trying to buy his first house, which was in Hamilton Park, a predominantly black neighborhood," Garrison says. "He had a job, he had good credit. He qualified for the loan, no problem, but three or four times while we were completing the application, he'd get up and pace around and walk out of the room. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw."

Soon, Garrison would observe other eccentricities about his associate at J. Alfred's, which would evolve into a gin mill for bikers. "We had peanut shells on the floor, and every Sunday morning Gene would come in, sweep up the shells, and put them into some container, scrub and mop the floor, and then throw the shells back down. Phil and I called him Clean Gene. He also had a penny fetish. He'd pull 'em out of the cash register every 15 minutes or so. One morning I saw him driving off to the bank, and the entire bed of his pickup truck was crammed with jars of pennies."