Bourbon Barrel Bar and Grill

About me:

The Bourbon Barrel Lounge (the name in 1970) was opened by the Daniels family of Decatur in January of 1970. The Daniels family also owned and ran the Colonial Mall where the Bourbon Barrel is located. When the bar opened it was managed by our Dad, Bill Torry. He helped in the decorating and purchasing of tables, chairs, coolers, etc. with Frank Daniels. Dad managed the bar until sometime in 1973 when he went back to truck driving. Managing a bar for someone else wasn't as lucrative as Dad had hoped and even though our Mom had a good job, Dad still felt he needed to do the best he could to provide for his family. In 1977 the Daniels family decided to sell the bar and contacted Dad and our Mom, Glenna about buying it. Dad and Mom were thrilled as they had never lost their love for the bar and had always hoped it would be theirs someday. So on January 21, 1978 the Bourbon Barrel Lounge became the bar of Bill and Glenna Torry. Dad and Mom both thought the bar had moved past the "lounge" stage and wanted to make the "Barrel" as it soon became with the regulars a neighborhood bar. They started checking into new tables and chairs that would take up less room so they could put in a pool table. By 1983 they had expanded the length of the bar out into the mall and had 3 pool tables. Over the years they had a shuffle board table, pinball, pacman table and other games. In 1983 Kim came to work at the bar cleaning and stocking. I also joined the business doing the daily bookwork and payroll. This job I was able to mainly do at home after the birth of my daughter Jennifer in April of 1983. In February of 1984 when Kim turned 21 she began sharing bartending duties with a couple other bartenders and Mom who had been laid off from the Herald and Review. In 1986 Dad suffered an unexpected injury that would leave him unable to bartend anymore and would require a long time of recuperation at home. So I then joined the bar in a bartending capacity along with the bookkeeping duties. Mom temporarily gave up her bartending to care for Dad and to take care of Jenn for me while I was working. Dad continued to recuperate and made basically a full recovery, but decided not to go back to bartending. He then became our "glorified errand boy" as he liked to refer to himself. He went to the bank every day and did shopping and other things that we needed for the bar. He also became Moms errand boy too, and always had a list of "honey does" from her. Mom also went back to her bartending duties a job she dearly loved. In September of 1998 Mom became ill and after 11 short days in the hospital, passed away very much unexpectedly. All of our lives changed after that day. And not just the lives of her family. Mom had become a very important part of many of our customers lives. Especially the younger crowd of which she spent a lot of time with. You see Mom wanted no part of the daytime crowd. She said she wanted to be with the kids at night. It was more fun and never boring. She worked up until the day she went into the hospital. Dad now having lost the love of his life and his business partner concentrated on their love, the Bourbon Barrel. Sometime in 2002, Steve Daniels, now one of the younger Daniels who was running Daniels Properties, came to Dad and asked if he would be interested in expanding the bar over to the east into the empty space where Thrify Drug and Family Drug had been over the years. Kim and I were somewhat reluctant in starting a venture of this magnitude. Dad was in his early 70's and it seemed like a lot to take on at this point in his life. But as he pointed out, soon the bar would be ours and he would like to leave us something that maybe would be more lucrative to us and something to compete with the food and entertainment industry in Decatur. So the planning and renovations began and in September of 2004 the Bourbon Barrel Lounge became the Bourbon Barrel Bar & Grill. Dad was very pleased with the outcome and seemed thrilled to see new life breathing into his old place. Dad continued his errand boy duties, but had a lot of shopping added to it, with the addition of a full service kitchen. But Kim and I always said it was all of these things that kept him going after Mom died. He became very well known at Krogers (Brettwood) and at Sams Club. He knew almost everyone by name. Dad became ill in November of 2005 and by April of 2006 was no longer able to participate in the day to day workings of the bar. But we kept him up to speed on everything that was going on at the bar every day during our visits and phone calls. On September 3, 2006 Dad passed away at home with Kim and our Aunt by his side. I had left about an hour prior, telling him I was going to the bar to take care of the payroll and bookwork and would be back. Although he was unable to respond I'm sure he heard me. Somehow I think that must have been where he wanted me to be. Although the two people that started this business for our family are now gone, there's not a day goes by that we don't think of them and also reflect on all of the things they taught us about being a good business owner. The Bourbon Barrel Bar & Grill has a full menu from your typical bar food (and not so typical), appetizers to steaks and bacon wrapped pork loins. The kitchen is open 7 days a week. Mon.-Thurs. serving lunch from 11-2 and dinner from 5-9. Fridays the kitchen is open all day from 11-10, Saturdays 11-9 and Sundays from 12noon-8. The bar is open Mon-Sat. from 10am-2am and Sundays 12noon-2am. Along with great food and drinks we have 6 TV's, 2 of them being big screens. We also have 4 pool tables, Golden Tee Golf, Deer Hunting, 2 dart machines and an internet jukebox. We also have 2 Mega Touch trivia machines at the bar. One of which you can play the internet jukebox from. We recently started having bands and DJ's. We would like to continue this and hope to have one or the other at least 1 Saturday night a month. Please look to our MySpace page in the future for bands, benefits etc. We hope to start posting these events along with pictures, food specials etc. very soon. We are located at 1355 N. Route 48 Decatur, IL. (In the back of the Colonial Mall) at the corner of Grand and 48. Our phone number is 217-429-7506 and our fax is 217-429-0974.