James Joseph “Jim” Barsi, who ran his eponymous liquor store on East Lake Avenue for a half-century before selling the business and retiring in 2019, died on Jan. 26. He was 83.
Eddie Casillas said he began working for Barsi when he was 16, and spent the next 15 years at the shop, eventually working his way up to managing the store.
Those years would shape the rest of Cassillas’s life as he learned the inner workings of the business from Barsi, a mentor he describes as a “fierce competitor in the business,” whose marketing prowess made him the number-one selling account for Couch Distributing.
“Jim was always looking on how to improve his business, even though his business was always good,” Casillas said. “He was just driven to build his business every day of the week, and he passed that passion on to me.” Casillas now runs his own business—called Lalo’s Liquors located at 338 Riverside Drive—with the same focus on service he remembers from Barsi.
“I’m still carrying the torch for him here. Just doing business the way he would do it,” he said. “Everything he did, it reflected on nothing but success, and happy customers.”
But Casillas also saw another side of Barsi.
“Away from the business, he was all about his family and his kids, and then later his grandkids, spending time with him,” he said.
In 2019, after he had announced his retirement, Barsi told The Pajaronian that he wanted to spend time with his grandchildren.
“I have neuropathy in my feet, I have a pacemaker, I have five stents in my heart, I’m 77,” he said. “I have to get out; I still have the enthusiasm.” “My whole life has been this place,” he said.
Barsi was born in Boston, Mass. on May 21, 1942, to his parents James Joseph E. Barsi and Louise E. Barsi. He spent his early childhood and grammar school years in Sappington Missouri, a suburb of Saint Louis, where his father was an executive for Anheuser Busch.
He lost his mother to cancer when he was 13, and his father in an automobile accident at 15 in 1957. Barsi, who was a passenger, survived but remained in a coma for nearly two weeks.
He attended Mora High School, where Renaissance High School now sits.
In 1963 Jim met and married the love of his life Mary Larscheid, and they raised four children. During his decades in business he contributed numerous hours of his time to local community organizations such as Watsonville Jaycees, the Tavern Tourney, The Spring Lamb Annual Barbeque for Cancer Research and as an elected Commissioner on the Board of the Salsipuedes Fire District, where he helped to shepherd the district through the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. A viewing and rosary will be held at Mehl’s Colonial Chapel at 222 E. Lake Avenue, Watsonville, on Feb. 5 from 5 to 9 pm, with rosary starting at 7pm. A funeral mass will be on Feb. 6 at 11am at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel Catholic Church at 19101 Bear Creek Road, in Los Gatos. A private burial will be held at a later date. To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.
