Crucially, their logo is a hanging above a mountain range. If you glance at it on a sign or a menu, your brain might easily supply the word “Paper” in front of “Moon.” 3. The Film’s Aesthetic = The Bar’s Vibe Paper Moon (1973) stars a young Tatum O’Neal and Ryan O’Neal as a con man and a orphan girl selling Bibles door-to-door in 1930s Kansas. The film is shot in shimmering black-and-white. It’s a story of makeshift families, beautiful lies, and finding poetry in poverty.
Developers and artists loved the noir quality: the wide streets, the old neon signs, the sense of a place that had been used hard and left behind. It felt like a movie set for a Depression-era road trip. And what’s the most famous Depression-era road trip movie? . 2. The Jasper: The Real Bar In 2017, The Jasper opened at 3117 W. Leigh Street. It was an instant classic. The owners (also behind The Roosevelt and Laura Lee’s) designed it as a "twilight bar" — dark, intimate, with amber lighting, tufted leather booths, and a long marble bar. The cocktail menu is full of pre-Prohibition classics. paper moon scott's addition
They called it Paper Moon, after the old movie. Inside, it was all shadows and bourbon. The bartender—a guy they called ‘Moses’—wouldn’t give you a menu. He’d just ask, ‘What’s your trouble?’ and then make you a drink to fix it. Crucially, their logo is a hanging above a mountain range
There is a famous "Paper Moon" restaurant in Milan, Italy, and another in Singapore. There was a short-lived "Paper Moon" pop-up dinner series in Brooklyn in 2014. But in Scott’s Addition? It lives only in the collective imagination—which, as the film itself teaches us, is often the best place for beautiful things. The film is shot in shimmering black-and-white
People said you could go there to hide out, to make a deal, to fall in love, or to break one off. It wasn’t on any map. You just had to know someone who knew the password. And then one day, like a ghost, it was gone. The space became a regular cocktail bar called The Jasper. Nice place. But it’s not the same.” That’s the fiction. The truth is tamer: a clever bar with a moon logo, a classic film, and a neighborhood full of romantic ruin. But the fiction is why people still ask about the “Paper Moon” today. Go to The Jasper (3117 W. Leigh St., Richmond, VA 23230). Order an Old Fashioned. Sit in the back booth. Watch the black-and-white movie playing silently on the little TV above the bar. And when someone asks where you are, smile and say, “Paper Moon.”