The location of Bottoms Up is so remote, not even the owners really know where they are.

Jason and Kristi Thies, who bought the restaurant and bar in 2009, said the business’s postal address is Jacob, Illinois, but Jacob is two miles away.

The location doesn’t keep patrons from attending, however. Most days, Bottoms Up has its local and regular customers, and the restaurant is frequently packed on Wednesdays with college students.

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The students typically drive 30-40 minutes to reach the small, red building.

Students claim the atmosphere of Bottoms Up is one of the attractions of the restaurant, as the rural location reminds them of their rural Illinois hometowns. Customers have the option of sitting outside under the pavilion, where there is an outside bartender, the game of bags and a free jukebox.

Around the building is a large yard, with a cornfield on one side of the building. Students bring cards, footballs, Frisbees, their pets and more to enjoy the outdoors while waiting on their food or just enjoying the atmosphere.

The Wednesday draw, students claim, comes from the night’s menu: one boasting cheap fried chicken and cheap beer. An eight-piece fried chicken meal is only $6, and domestic beers are only $1.25, making this restaurant a prime location for students who wish to socialize but are on a budget.

“Wednesday night is our main night [for students] … every once in awhile we’ll see familiar faces that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on Wednesday nights. We’ll see them a lot of times with their parents on Saturday or Sunday when their parents come to visit,” Jason Thies said.

Kristi Thies said the prices used to be even cheaper, but they have had to raise them because of the economy.

Bottoms Up does not use much advertising, so they rely almost solely on word of mouth, which has proved to be a good strategy for them.

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Kristi Thies said they count their food tickets to estimate how busy they are.

“Tickets are very important on Wednesday nights,” she said.

She said they consider any night they sell fewer than 300 meals to be slow, and their record is almost 500.

“You just can’t imagine the people that come in here,” she said.  “Of course, everyone comes for the fried chicken. . . . I guess we’ve got a pretty good mark on the fried chicken.”

She said she has met customers from as far away as Poplar Bluff, Mo., and Evansville, Ill., which is near Lake of Egypt.

Jason Thies said the Wednesday-night chicken special started six years ago, a menu decision from the previous owners, Frank and Cheryl Bledsoe. Thies said the Wednesday nights kept getting busier and busier, but they are currently at a plateau. Thies said he believes the plateau is because SIU’s senior class graduated and the freshmen haven’t heard about it yet.

The quaint location also boasts a nontraditional event. Instead of the typical Fourth of July parade, this community hosts a tractor parade, one that began as a seven-mile long trek around what Kristi Thies calls “the country block.”

“That was started a long time ago, by a bunch of crazy people that live down here in the Bottoms,” said Kristi Thies.

She said the daylong parade took participants around the community as they made several pit stops to drink beer. The next year, they decided to use tractors instead.

Now it is a large parade that extends from bar to bar.

Thies said it is nice to see what everyone has done for the parade, and this year’s parade had around 90 tractors.

“It’s a day for the Bottoms to shine,” said Kristi Thies. “What we do around here is just for fun.”

When they bought the restaurant, Kristi Thies said she and her husband were surprised to learn the building dates back to the early 1900s. She said the business has been under a few different ownerships and has changed its name at least three times.

Recently, the restaurant has undergone other problems, including weather-related issues. The most recent incident happened in 2011, when a record rainfall caused flooding along the lower Mississippi River, making the trek to the restaurant difficult for patrons.

Kristi Thies said the business was open, but it was a challenge to get there.

“We live about 10 minutes from here, and when the roads were all going under [water], there was really only one way in and one way out and that was through Gorham. So instead of taking me 10 minutes to get here, it would take about 35 minutes to get here because I would have to go all the way around, or take the levee,” Kristi Theis said.

Taking the levee was more dangerous than it sounds, because, as a levee for the Mississippi River, it has only a gravel road, which is very narrow and without a shoulder or rails.

In addition, floodwater surrounded the building; however, it never entered the restaurant itself. This allowed Bottoms Up to remain open for business.

“We never flooded [inside]. When people would call, and they would ask if we were still open, I was like yes we’re still open. [People would say] well I heard there was water.  I said yes, we have ocean-front property right now,” Kristi Thies said.

There is a large aerial picture on a wall inside Bottoms Up, showing the amount of water because of the flood around the restaurant and the invisible nearby roads.

Entertainment-wise, Bottoms Up hosts local bands, but only advertises these events in the local paper.

One future event will take place on Halloween.

“Halloween is usually a big night for us. We usually have a small band in the back room,” said Jason Thies. “We have a costume judging and it usually turns into a good time.”

For more information on the restaurant, please call (618) 763-4615.