Moonshine

I finally got around to reading yesterday's Tribune. Lo and behold, there's a front page Tempo article on Moonshine General Store(and hamburger haven) downstate. I very much enjoy their homey burgers and excellent condiment bar...so much so that I own one of their engraved, artisanal mugs. Anyone else visited?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/ ... 1038.story

We finally got around to taking a roadtrip to Martinsville, IL, home of the famous, by way of word-of-mouth, Moonshine Store.

The Moonshine Store is in the middle of Midwestern farmland. Not even
residential farmland. We literally drove for hours down county roads, tossing the map aside and navigating by counting down the numbers
and keeping an eye on the sun. I was on "assignment" and I knew they closed shop at NOON. Noon! By 11 am, I was getting nervous we wouldn't find this place. It's not on the map. There are no signs. Our cellphones had zero reception. I hadn't called my parents that morning to tell them I loved them. Nervous. We passed a house, which btw, houses came every 4 miles, that was having a "yard sale." We stopped, and I asked Lindsay to ask directions, as I was feeling androgenous and fearful a hate-crime was right around the bend. I guess I overreacted. She returned smiling, and said "he said to follow the black top!" "What is that?!" It's a paved street. And his last words were "You'll find it, just folla da black top."

After another 20 minutes of driving we spotted shimmering cars thru
the corn and heard the Vroom Vroom of Harley's. We were there....

The exterior is like a 1940's general store. Putrid brown, benches
on the front porch and church pews inside. They operate on the honor
system. You order, grab a soda from the cooler and some chips, if you like, and wait inside or outside for your name to be called. The "caller" I'd say is around 70 years old, missing many of her teeth, hairy legs but not European, and wears what looks to be handmade dresses. She was a firecracker.

My camera wasn't warmly welcomed at first. Most glared at me; after a few
minutes, everyone was asking just why I was taking photos. I told them
not to talk to me unless they asked first. Kidding. I told them I was on assignment.

I ordered a double cheeseburger, and Lindsay ordered a bacon cheeseburger. Def. not kosher! We washed it down with YooHoo's and Crush; I ate mine in under 2 minutes. Was it the best hamburger I've ever had? Yes. I've had many, but this was tops. Evidently people from all over the world flock there daily. The meat isn't sirloin, and they don't have fancy cheese, or a flashy interior, but this place has the ambiance that modernity can't offer.

There is a rather lagre man who sits there for hours on the church pew. He bounces little ones on his leg. I was tempted, for sure.

No public restroom. There is an outhouse. No lock. There is a sink indoors, and you can "just wipe your hands on your clothes," as we were told by
one of the guys inside.

So, where are the pictures?

Hi,

I am headed there in a few weeks, any really solid driving instructions you can offer?

REgards,

Nigel, all types are drawn to Moonshine. A li'l androgyny ain't nothing compared to the real fun to be had amongst the rows.

Cathy, I'll check with my s/o, he'll prolly offer somewhat succinct directions if yr coming 'round Casey, IL.

Definitely, get there before noon. At closing yr lucky if they'll let you in the door for a soda.

Sadly, I can't offer much help on HOW to find it. It really is a miracle I did. Getting into Casey is a breeze, and from there, staying on the same road (you'll drive through downtown Martinsville) I took one turn Right,
and maybe a left turn ( I think!) and kept driving on that "black top" until I found the Moonshine Store. If we hadn't of stopped at the yard sale I would have been clueless. And I do have photos! How do I upload?!

Here's a primer for you: Uploading Pictures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/saranigel/

Beta-blog-googling(creepy function, that) myself under a name I used to deploy on CH and continue with on a couple other sites(one with a horrifically passe' "foodie" oriented title), I found this post on Moonshine that I'd kinda/sorta forgotten(with addendums):


Finally got around to reading Thursday's Tribune and found a Tempo article on one of my favorite Illinois hamburger shacks. Moonshine's barebones and packed with locals whiling away the lunch hour on church pews. The burgers are of the sloppy, misshapen, hand-molded variety. Homey (IGA?)chuck. The perfect touch: a rickety condiment table smackdab in the middle of the general store loaded with mustards, peppers, vegetable pickles, flavored catsups and mayos, etc. You could peel grease off the walls which only adds to the ambience. A burger(or two), bottled Sarsaparilla and black pepper tater chips underneath the sideyard Catalpa trees; the finest of southern Illinois.

Thee Addendums:

- the "sitty hall" outhouse is pretty stinky, but not nearly as mephitic as the porta-johns found in the early years of Burning Man's popularity.

- the schoolteacher crafted mugs are really neat souvenirs

- stopping and asking directions(or going with a local) is probably one's best bet

- "IGA chuck" IGA, well, maybe just the Casey, IL IGA excels in intelligently-fabricated meat. I rely on Jewel for my everyday(for reasons not worth going into here) and comparitively, Jewels' products are veritably-excremental wads of silverskin and integuement too often busting with saline and/or speedscratch! flavorings. When the s/o and I visit relatives down Casey way we stock up on cheap Choice beef, moray eel shaming pork loins(the girth!), and ground chuck. Maybe IGA employs actual butchers, perhaps they just have access to a respectfully-run central processing plant. Their meat's where its at whereas, so the s/o opines, for a supermarket wet with a fecund America's loins they sure do like their pre-packaged, dehydrated, canned, prophylactically-sublimated Lipton-Stouffer-McCormick Amish noodle loaf. All of which is to say Moonshine doesn't serve Kobe, they don't offer Wagyu(Kobe-style: patronizing, ill-informed menus...urf---it's like re-marketing Crimini mushrooms as baby portabella...well, yes, sure, but please don't infantilize my fungus...I digress), THEY don't offer Choice. Moonshine's got ambience and Americana to spare, they got teh Mike Sell's Black pepper potato chips, and you definitely can't order it to your doneness. In a place as awesome as this why would you?

Moonshine Store
6017 E 300th Rd
Martinsville, IL 62442
(618) 569-9200

http://www.clarkcountyil.org/Communities/moonshine.htm

About 18 months ago, I learned about Moonshine from Erik M. who had seen a segment on CBS Sunday Morning show. If it were not 250 miles one-way, depending on your route, without the eccentric hours of closing at 12:30 PM, then we might have hung up the phone and driven down on a lark. Instead it got postponed into the future until it drifted off the to-do list.

Fortunately, my occasional stint as an itinerant speaker on the History of American Pies, following the Smithsonian’s Key Ingredients exhibit around Illinois, brings me to places I would never have planned on my own. Last week, my destination was Marshall, Illinois where I had the privilege of staying overnight at the Archer House, which not only once housed Abraham Lincoln overnight but Grover Cleveland as well. This former bed and breakfast is now an overnight accommodation without breakfast. For $75 it was fun staying overnight at a place predating the Civil War.

My talk was at the local library just down the street from the Inn. I brought with me the road instructions for Moonshine with the hope a local might make some useful strategic comments. When I first mentioned Moonshine, which is 24 miles from Marshall, every one told me about the couple times they went to principally satisfy their curiosity. I was also warned not to have great expectations of the place. Interestingly, the library had preprinted instructions from Marshall to the Moonshine Store as “Featured on CBS.”

If you follow Route 1 through Marshall from the north, then these instructions apply:

1. Turn right on Archer Avenue, which turns into National Road.
2. Turn left onto US-40 from Marshall to Martinsville Road.
3. Turn left (south) onto York Road (if you turn right it is Cleone Road)
4. Go through Martinsville and on the south edge, immediately following the railroad tracks, turn right onto Jefferson Street, which becomes 700th Street. THIS IS WHERE MANY MAKE A MISTAKE!

5. Continue south to 1000th Road, turn right (west).
6. Turn left (south) on 670th Street; continue south until reaching 570th.
7. Turn right (west) to 570th Street.
8. Turn left (south) on 600th Street.
9. The Moonshine Store is on the northeast corner of 600th Street and 300th Road.

If you came on IL-49 from Casey, you have a much more direct shot to Moonshine by turning onto 400th Road, which leads you to 600th Street which intersects with 300th Road. I noticed at the cash register at Moonshine Store there were a number of directions from various locations in the region stacked up. Apparently they collect them and recycle back to their points of origin for re-use.

Approaching Moonshine Store from any direction, there are corn or soybean fields and no sign of another person. Reach the intersection of 600th Street turning left onto 300th Road, there is a very visible presence of humanity.



The interior of Moonshine Store has stamped tin ceiling tiles, glass merchandise cases filled with collections, several refrigerators chilling drinks, free standing display of chips and at the bottom of the U-shaped counters is the grillmaster.



While the menu offers a limited amount of grilled food, in the fifteen minutes I spent looking at everything, I never heard anyone divert from having a hamburger. Back in Marshall someone said they offered fried bologna sandwiches, which did not exist though I would have very likely ordered one in addition to a hamburger.



Once you place your order at the grill, there is no particular rush to pay for your food. Your name is called, nobody asks for proof of payment. You can dress your hamburger at the generous condiment counter, grab your chips and drink and go to picnic grove without laying out a dime. It is simply supposed at some point or another you will deliver yourself to the cash register to pay. I, of course, paid my bill while waiting for my food. I learned about this pay-when-you-get-to-it system by watching everyone else simply pay when they felt like it, which often was a visit back into the store on their way out of town.



On the CBS Sunday show, they showed the couple arriving at 5 AM to grind their meat and form it into patties. While I heard nobody order a level of doneness and I forgot as well, all the hamburgers seems to be cooked through. If it were your normal lean hamburger, this thorough cook would be the kiss of death. They clearly use a meat high in fat who could bear the thorough cooking while remaining moist and flavorful. Was this the best hamburger of my life? No, though it was a very good hamburger.



My entertainment while eating was listening to the conversations around me while reading the Thrifty Nickle, which I always pick up and scan whenever I come upon one. I especially like this ad on the bullet proof room, which is very likely not the fake ad!



Scattered on various tables were half gallon Mason jars, which I initially assumed was taking a collection for a local-in-need or perhaps for hurricane victims. Instead it was a bit of cross-marketing between Moonshine and a gift store-log cabin business down the road. I wasn’t precisely sure if they were selling gifts in a log cabin style store or sold gifts as well as log cabins.



I am quite happy to have gone to Moonshine Store to meet a thriving business in the middle of nowhere, which defies the business school mantra of location-location-location! What they offer is a straightforward well-prepared hamburger in a rustic setting. They make a best-of hamburger for their region, because anything less and nobody would make the effort to seek them out. While it is destination dining no matter where you come from, I certainly am glad it was not THE destination rather just another stop on an itinerary.

If I were in the general area, I would definitely go there again. I would not go there from Chicago only for the hamburger, though I do consider it a great experience.

Archer House
717 Archer Avenue
Marshall, IL 62441
217-826-8023

Moonshine Store
6017 E 300th Rd
Martinsville, IL 62442
(618) 569-9200

Cathy,

Great pics!

With the weather turning cooler I'd love to enjoy a burger or two in the sideyard.

HI,

They are far enough south they have a longer autumn than we do and an earlier spring. One of the locals talked about eating in the side yard in a misty rain. I imagine it would be interesting to be there on a cold wind-swept day when everyone has to huddle around the pot belly stove.

There were several regulars there, who were pictured in the Tribune article, shooting the breeze.

One small disappointment was the total lack of locally baked goods there for dessert. Getting a Hostess Twinkie doesn't seem to fit the picture.

Regards,

It's neat you stayed at that hotel. Whenever the s/o and I pass by on our sojourns down South, the s/o(a huge Lincoln afficianado) shouts out, "Lincoln slept there!"

As per the burgers, you hit the nail right on the head: they're tasty(not the holy grail by any means) and the store itself's intriguing, but not worth a multi-hour trip. However, if you have other business in the area then there's no reason not to visit.