Wiktionary
alt. (context slang English) an informal drinking establishment featuring blues music and dancing; primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. n. (context slang English) an informal drinking establishment featuring blues music and dancing; primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States.
WordNet
n. a small roadside establishment in the southeastern United States where you can eat and drink and dance to music provided by a jukebox [syn: juke, jook, jook joint, juke house, jook house]
Wikipedia
Juke joint (or jook joint) is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. The term "juke" is believed to derive from the Gullah word joog, meaning rowdy or disorderly. A juke joint may also be called a "barrelhouse".
Classic juke joints found, for example, at rural crossroads, catered to the rural work force that began to emerge after the emancipation. Plantation workers and sharecroppers needed a place to relax and socialize following a hard week, particularly since they were barred from most white establishments by Jim Crow laws. Set up on the outskirts of town, often in ramshackle buildings or private houses, juke joints offered food, drink, dancing and gambling for weary workers. Owners made extra money selling groceries or moonshine to patrons, or providing cheap room and board.
Juke Joint is a 1947 race film directed by and starring Spencer Williams and produced and released by Sack Amusement Enterprises.
Usage examples of "juke joint".
I hit every nightclub and juke joint on both sides of Sunset from Doheny to La Cienega--with no luck.
He took me to a place called Junebug's, a white man's idea of a juke joint, full of ugly people giving us dirty looks, except some young ladies and the management.
We were back over on the East Side, at a little, smoky black juke joint called the Congo Bongo Club, having a beer.
When they planned to kidnap the son of the mayor they had talked it over, quite loudly, in a juke joint.
After the Vietnamese enclave, the highway passed through an interminable stretch of beach cabins with cute names (Jimmy's Juke Joint, Li'l Bit O'Heaven, Moon Mansion replete with a big plywood ass shining in his headlights) and private driveways that went straight down to the dark water on either side.
Rusted pickup trucks and oversized jalopy gas burners were parked at an angle to the curb, and sometimes whole families sat listlessly in them while the old man was inside the juke joint.
I had picked her up in Homestead, Florida, three weeks before at a juke joint near the trailer camp where I had been staying.