I can still remember going to Jake’s restaurant in Manayunk when it opened on Oct. 19, 1987, because that same day the stock market crashed, losing about 500 points. The market continued losing big time for a few days, and experts were predicting disaster, but the market slowly rebounded, as it does, and wound up fully recovering the lost points after a couple months.

When we visited Jake’s then, I said to my wife, “I assure you this restaurant will not last for more than a year. It’s too upscale. Fancy prices and fancy food. It would do fine downtown, but in working-class, rowhouse Manayunk, no way.”

This just proves that no one should ever listen to my mutual-fund or football-game predictions. I could not have been more wrong. In fact, Jake’s, which is now called Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar, will be marking exactly 39 years in business when owner Bruce Cooper does close the business on Oct. 19 of this year at 4365-67 Main St.

It is not because the restaurant has declined in any way but because owner and chef Bruce Cooper, 72, has essentially worked 24/7 all those years. He has put the property up for sale for $3.1 million, which is a lot of pasta and shrimp.

From now until Oct. 19, there will be extremely discounted pricing, the same prices that were charged during Restaurant Week this year from Sept. 14 to 20. On the final day, there will be a party, and everything that is left will be sold, with proceeds going to a local charity.

Cooper, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, often called the Harvard of culinary schools, admitted after opening Jake’s that Manayunk was so drowsy that “there were practically tumbleweeds floating down the street,” with Saturday parking spots actually available on Main Street.

Over the years, however, as Manayunk blossomed as a restaurant destination, Jake’s received more than its share of accolades. Jake’s was the first restaurant in Philadelphia to receive a three-bell review by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s rock-tough restaurant critic, Craig LaBan. Reviewed again in October 2018, Jake’s was named “Best Restaurant in Manayunk” with an excellent list of wines by the glass.

The restaurant was originally named after Cooper’s wife Helena, whose nickname is Jake. His son, Bruce Joseph Cooper II, has been helping to manage the restaurant.

Some of the dishes that have drawn so many customers into Jake’s were the grilled octopus with tahini chickpea purée and fingerling potato, lemon herb shrimp with barbecue mustard, pan-seared Scottish salmon with brussels sprouts and chive ginger sauce, sautéed crab cakes, brick-oven pizzas, shrimp verde, mussels, tuna tartare and house-made desserts like the ice cream sampler (vanilla, bittersweet chocolate and brownie caramel).

Jake’s expanded in 2008 to add Cooper’s Brick Oven Wine Bar, eventually merging the two spaces into one. Although the menu was the same, diners had a choice of a quiet, white tablecloth-lined fine-dining destination or a lively bar scene with more than 30 wines by the glass as well as an impressive wine by the bottle list.

Fourteen years ago, Cooper said in an interview, “There is no better time than this quarter-century anniversary to launch our casual-inspired Jake’s side’s reconceptualization, flaunting black walnut-topped tables, an exceptional wooden wine wall touting a new boutique beverage program, and a menu that’s less American classic and more global in flavor.”

Jake’s also overcame a water-main break in 2016 that shut its doors for months and then survived a pandemic that closed countless other boldface Philadelphia area restaurants permanently like Mica, City Tavern, Warmdaddy’s, Serpico, Marathon Grill, Cheu Noodle Bar, The Continental in Old City, Bibou and many others.

Some of the most enjoyable dining experiences we ever had were the “Book and the Cook” dinners at Jake’s from 1987 to 2007. The annual three-day food festival paired national and international cookbook authors with local Philadelphia chefs. Together, they hosted special multi-course dinners and wine-tasting events at restaurants across the city, and Jake’s events were among the most memorable. Founded to promote Philadelphia’s growing culinary scene, the festival ended in 2007, but it helped put Philadelphia on the map as a premier American dining destination

For more information, visit jakesandcoopers.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.