Photos by Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Long-time Chip and Jo's patrons Jr. Jones, left, and Charlie Webster enjoy the beer garden at a pre-Labor Day party held Sunday evening at Chip and Jo's Restaurant in Salem.

A growing crowd listen to a band at a pre-Labor Day party held Sunday evening at Chip and Jo's Restaurant in Salem.

While their parents listen to music, HAley, Woolwine, 15, and Sydney Ferrell, 14, wave to motorists passing a pre-Labor Day party held Sunday evening at Chip and Jo's Restaurant in Salem.

SALEM -- About three dozen people gathered at a Labor Day celebration that doubled as a gathering for family, old friends and natives of the neighborhood known as The Bottom.

On the south side of the city, Chip & Jo's Restaurant on Eighth Avenue is surrounded by businesses of the blue-collar variety.

Among a dozen car-repair garages, a scrap yard and the former Valleydale meat-packaging plant sits the restaurant, which hosted the party complete with live entertainment from two bands, Our House and Big Lik.

Despite its industrial surroundings, the restaurant Jo Shearer runs with her husband, Chip, serves as a gathering place for lawyers and doctors as well as mechanics and small-business owners.

"You name it, they come in here," she said.

Sunday's party was one of two the owners throw every year; the other is on Memorial Day weekend.

"It's a way to get local families together," Chip Shearer said. "With gas prices up, it's the cheap way to go."

Ribs and chicken smothered in barbecue sauce cooked on an outdoor grill, ready to accompany baked beans, slaw and soda.

People ate as they waited for the band to set up, swatting flies and hoping the threat of rain remained just that.

A sense of pride could be felt in the group, including the "East Bottom Gang," as Jo Shearer jokingly referred to her group of longtime neighborhood friends.

The group includes Rosie Bland, who Jo Shearer first met in the fifth grade. Bland was raised in the neighborhood, and her father, who is now retired, at one time drove a taxi and worked at the Valleydale plant.

"There's a lot of honest, hardworking people here," Jo Shearer said. "A lot of good people come from here." Most describe the neighborhood as tight-knit, like the entire city of Salem.

Everybody knows everybody somehow, Shearer said.

Some have moved away from the neighborhood along the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, just south of the Salem Civic Center, but many return to visit or to stay.

"It's just a place to live," said Debbie Jones, a part of the East Bottom Gang and native of the neighborhood. "We love this area."

The party was a family event, with Jo Shearer's brother, Don Hogan, acting as the chef and Chip Shearer's father in town from Smith Mountain Lake to enjoy the food and company.

As people listened to the bands and caught up with old friends, they celebrated more than Labor Day.

They celebrated a neighborhood known for hard work and the relationships built around it.