Jill's Bar: a heated tiki bar hiding inside a 1981 corner tavern

Some bars you walk into and you're already among friends. Jill's Bar, on Bodart St in Green Bay, has been that kind of place since 1981 — an old corner bar that never tried to be anything else.

The surprise waits out the back door. Step onto the patio, hang a left, and you walk right into Todd & Jill's Tiki Bar. It's small — 20 people, tops — but it's fully heated, and here's the part I love: you control the heat, and there's a speaker you run yourself. Your temperature, your music, your little heated island in the middle of a Green Bay November. There's even a coffin-shaped table in there, because of course there is.

Hungry? The hamburgers are $2 — real hamburgers — and the food comes from Los Arcos, the Mexican restaurant next door, which the same folks own, so they just bring it over to you. It's a full menu, too — ceviche, shrimp everything, oysters. They weren't serving on Sunday, but you're welcome to bring food in. The popcorn's free, and it's pretty good.

And behind the bar there's a juicer — the Summer Hummers, Jill's signature, are squeezed fresh to order, and there are orange drink specials to go with them. Fresh juice in a corner dive. That's the kind of detail that tells you how the place is run.

Prices are right, the bartender's fun, and the whole place has that old corner bar feel you can't fake. Jill's has lasted since 1981 because it never stopped being a neighborhood bar.

📸 See all the photos from our visit: the full Jill's Bar gallery at Mediaone7