Louie Manci doesn't have much time for hobbies because he works seven days a week – at the age of 88. He owns his own bar and is the primary bartender, opening at noon every day and leaving when the last customer leaves.
"I follow them out," he says. Often that's between 8 and 10:30 p.m., though his license allows him to stay open until 1 a.m.
He and his wife, Jean, have owned Louie's Bar and Beer Garden on Stanton Street for 36 years. For his 88th birthday on Sept. 1, Mayor Misty Buscher issued a proclamation honoring Manci and his family's longtime run in the local tavern business. Among those attending the surprise party at the bar was former Mayor Jim Langfelder, who had issued a similar decree three years earlier.
When the bar opened in 1988, the area on the city's southeast side was bustling with car dealerships, the former Eagle grocery store and restaurants. Louie's has survived not only the departure of those businesses, which provided regular customers, but also the pandemic, which he acknowledges hurt business after the bar shut down for a while. Louie and his daughter, Angie Manci McKinnery, are now the bartenders, though Angie is part-time and works elsewhere as well. "It's not so busy now, but I'm not too fast any more, so I can handle it," Manci says.
Manci became an important resource for Bobby and Sandy Orr when the couple published two books about the history of Springfield's taverns a few years ago. Orr, a friend for more than 40 years, says Manci has "a work ethic that has all but evaporated in today's society. His 10- to 12-hour days, seven days a week, are just routine to him, as he has been doing much the same all his life."
Louie's wife worked alongside him in the bar for a quarter century before moving to a local nursing home about 10 years ago. Paying for Jean's expenses is a big reason that Louie keeps working. "That is what keeps him going; the cost is astronomical," Angie says.
Many of the bar's displays and decorations feature Marilyn Monroe. It started when someone gave him a framed portrait of the famous actress, "and people thought I really liked her," he explains. That led to others routinely giving him Marilyn-themed gifts, including a PEZ dispenser, a cardboard cutout and many pictures. Manci seems to get as much enjoyment out of people thinking he's a fan as he does in the multitudinous Marilyn décor.
Another display is a mannequin wearing a Feitshans Flyers sweater, given to him by Fred O'Connor, a high school classmate with whom he is still in contact.
Louie's upbringing on Springfield's east side stemmed from his dad's and uncle's ownership of the Hi-D-Ho Tavern at 18th and East Adams streets. The family lived upstairs. As a boy of 12 or 13, he recalls going to the local newspaper building after school and then taking "the Register flash newspaper, called the red flash," to bars and the Levee District and selling individual copies to patrons for a nickel each. "But they wouldn't just give me a nickel; they gave me more, 10 cents or a quarter. That's where you made your money," he says.
When he finished Feitshans High School, he briefly went to work at Pillsbury Mills. Then he enlisted for two years in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving as a field radio operator in California. He returned to Springfield and worked at Pillsbury again and then at the Allis Chalmers manufacturing plant. After getting laid off, he got into bartending and landed at the Elks Lodge for 18 years.
He has fond memories of the lively lodge on South Sixth Street, across from the current Obed & Isaac's in downtown Springfield. The Elks had many sleeping rooms, a barber shop, bowling alley, ballroom and meeting rooms – and more than one bar that kept Manci busy.
"A lot of elderly people lived there – retired there – because it was cheap to live there," Manci says.
Manci describes his 10 years at the Elks downtown, starting in 1969, as his favorite work location, although he stayed with the Elks as a bartender and manager for eight years after the club moved to Lake Springfield. The absence of a retirement plan at the Elks prompted Manci to establish his own bar, he said. He bought an empty lot on Stanton Street and erected the building, providing some of the manual labor himself.
Meanwhile, he and Jean had raised three children in Springfield. Daughter Angie still lives in the area, in Sherman, with her husband and two children. Another daughter, Gina, and her husband and two children live in Milwaukee, and son Nick lives in Sedona, Arizona.
Manci still enjoys the bantering among customers – one group called themselves the Liars Club because of the tales they told one another – and listening to customers and their stories. That, along with supporting his wife's care, keeps him going.
His friend Bobby Orr says Manci "represents a dying breed of family bar owners. Many newer bar owners are corporations or partnerships. That family, neighborhood atmosphere is hard to find these days. People come to Louie's to see Louie, and at 88 he does know your name It may not be your given name, but he'll have a name for you."
Ed Wojcicki freelances from Springfield.
