I have no idea who Mr Jacks is. When first opened, Mr Jacks was owned by Pico Systems Ltd of Edmonton, but within a year or so, ownership seemed to have changed hands to Romasave Property Services Ltd of C/O King and King, Roxburghe House, 273 – 287 Regent Street, London, W1B 2HA. A sign above the place now refers to the premises having been recently put up for auction handled by Strettons, as a commercial investment with the business itself not affected.
Maybe Mr Jacks was once the owner, or maybe the name is a vague reference ('homage' is how people sometimes describe these things) to the well-known late night tipple, Jack Daniels. Hopefully he is not supposed to remind us of the eponymous fugitive psychopathic assassin in the book by Tom Wilson.
For better or worse, Mr Jacks is the name over the door of the bar at No 38-40 St James's Street at the corner with Frederick Road. You can tell it is a bar in the daytime by the large electric green neon sign, which the owners often leave on even when the shutters are down. It's their money of course, but this does seem a needless burning up of their profits and the world's energy resources.
The place opens at various times in the early afternoon- two or three maybe, depending on the whim of the owners . It closes late. Along with a raft of St James's Street eateries, they recently applied for a license to open very late - several are hoping to be able to stay open till three o'clock in the morning. These sort of times are well past my bed-time I'm afraid, so I shall have to hope that one of the local demimondaines who are still bending their elbows at that late hour will write in and tell us what they think of the place at that time of night.
In the day-time it is just a shop-front in dark green surrounds with large glass windows, a number of low lying sofas and a bar in the middle of what is a fairly open-plan, modern space. As with my post on the Cock, I will remind people that a bar is what you make of it, and can't be expected to sparkle and be at its best if you aren't. The hand written signs currently facing the street are in Polish, though the odd word in English tells prospective clients that the menu includes Polish food. The website is also in Polish, as apparently is the Karaoke and the Polska Dyskoteka. There is also an orange sign in Polish with the sole English injunction 'Private Party' at the entrance for the thuggish looking bouncers to gesture at if they want to make non-Poles feel unwelcome. Apparently these people don't mean to integrate. I hope the Jack reference isn't a derivation from blackjack.
Mr Jacks is across Frederick Street from Madisons Estate Agents and just down the road from the Market Inn. Alpha Radio is to the left.