Featuring Four (or Five or Six) : Rick

Rio Grande to Café Au Lait:
Whatever language, Smysers are having fun

When I first returned to Canton in 2010 and was teaching at KSU- Stark, a colleague in English
said, "Let's meet for coffee at Latte Da. It's out your way." I arrived early, and I have never felt I was in any place so very "with it" in Perry Township before. This was a café like I have been experiencing since Europe in the 1970s, and then my haunt in Cleveland, Arabica in the late 1970s when it first open. A few PHS teens were sitting around desultorily, as teenagers are supposed to be sitting around when parents aren't nagging them about SATs and job applications. The ladies who lunch were having coffee, and my college colleague and I were sorting through life in the poetry slow  lane. Better yet, I was having an iced coffee that was wonderful and not overloaded with calories or artificial chemicals.
Then two years later, I noticed the name of the place had changed to ANNIE's Latte Da Coffee House, and I meant to get back but didn't until, preparing for the 45th class reunion this fall, I found out the café had been purchased in March of 2012 by Annie Smyser, the wife of our illustrious classmate, Rick Smyser. When I stopped in to check it out, I found, aghast, that Rick had not received an invitation to the reunion. He seemed a bit miffed but I drove home, got  an invitation, and drove back, handing it over to him within 8 minutes of finding out. I also found out that he had moved since the last reunion and not sent Marsha Rennecker a change of address. (Neither did Sue Scourfield Goodspeed, who had given her change of address to another classmate in the parking lot of Marc's, and was shocked that it hadn't gotten back to Marsha. Take note everyone: get your contact info to Marsha. She is in the phone book under David Rennecker.) 

Adela and Josette do coffee

I also found the café as great as before only cleaner AND with

John breaks the gender and calorie barrier.

baked goods baked each morning by Annie. So after the reunion in October, a gang of the class of '68 agreed to show up to check the place out. A few came one afternoon and then, the day after Thanksgiving, we met again there for the out of towners who were back in town for the holiday. Some who were there one of these times or another or both were Adela Rosca Seal, Jamie Clinger Voican, Josette Clouse Meade, Sue Masalko Shaffer, Lynette Carlson Duplain, Vicki Harbison, Vicki Cochran Warden, Mary Bryden Dalpiaz, and Debby Anderson Burdorf. and I, and though it had always been just us PHS women before, meeting for salad dinners at Panera and coffee at Annie's, John Tharp broke the gender barrier and came as did some sundry husbands. (And Tom Walter had made it in earlier with his family for lunch.) On the first trip, at first we all just ordered drinks. Rick made Vicki Harbison and me a chai tea that was exquisite. Then we went

Jamie and Sue, together, as usual



Vicki and Lynette talk about reaging

 for the cookies, and I am not going to mention that one of us bought half a dozen cookies to take home and ATE THEM ALL while sitting there. They were so good. Pumpkin spice. Soft ones. And huge sugar cookies which several people claimed as their lunch. At the Thanksgiving meetup, people dove into cinnamon rolls and breakfast-appropriate treats. And coffee. Have I mentioned the coffee is very good? And believe me, I don't say that about most of the coffee in Stark County. Most of the coffee here is what Southerners call, "scared water." Smysers get their beans from the "Red Cedar Coffee Company," and it is good coffee, brewed well.
 

It wasn't until after the new year that I got back to the café to interview Rick and Annie about the place. But first, of course, I needed to get the backstory: what the hell has Rick been doing since that graduation march down the aisles of Perry Christian church, that June when Robert Kennedy was shot and the Repository was on strike? Well, first, he went off to college at Rio Grande in the fall of 1972. There during his college career, he met Annie. They were both majoring in Education, she in Elementary and he in Physical Education, and since she was younger and they waited until she graduated to get married, they married in June of 1975. By then, Rick realized he could make more money at Republic Steel, and he signed on there and avoided a lifetime of teenagers. Except his own, whom I remember when they were little. Rick and Annie brought them to one of the post-reunion breakfasts where a bunch of us met outdoors at a hotel, two daughters and a son. I gather they are bigger now, all out of school and on with their lives. Along the way Rick became a Sheriff's Deputy, from whence he has some great stories you should ask him about some afternoon when you are bellied up to the coffee bar where everybody knows your name.

Annie Smyser

The café was clearly Annie's idea and her fourth and final baby. She told me that she used to come to the café with a group of professionals from the Perry school system, where Annie worked (along with PHS '68 Judy Robbins Saylor). Like me, she really liked the feel of the place. And when she retired from the school, she wanted a challenge and a source of income for a dream she is planning with the income from the store. When she found out the business was for sale, she went home and told Rick, "who has always been supportive," she says and by which she means, I think that he did not have a heart attack but instead, sat down and "did the numbers" as business people say. What Rick mostly remembers about those days is the cleaning they had to do when they first took over the business, and really, the place sparkles today.

Is this a barrista or what? He says his favorite to make
 are lattesm so order one an make his day.

In addition to wonderful baked goods, the café serves oatmeal for breakfast and for lunch, homemade soups and sandwiches from a menu that changes daily. I can personally recommend the chicken salad. Everything is just very healthy here, a made-from-scratch place. So what is the couple's deep dark secret to success? Judy Saylor summed them up this way: "They are both very nice people who care about others around them," and she went on, "They have been EMTs and Civil War enactors, they have taken care of family, horses, and several houses at one time." All this and Rick cooks and does woodworking, too, and made several wood projects for the preschool class room in Perry Township. But what Judy recommends every time she talks about Annie are her cakes, "the most beautiful wedding cakes and special occasion cakes and cookies." If you are looking for something special for your 64th birthday (will you still need us, will you still feed us?) or your 65th, to celebrate retirement or your grandkids' graduation, look up Annie first.

Please. If you haven't yet visited their place, make plans today to do so. If you aren't a coffee drinker, go for the tea. And cookies. Or soup. And sandwiches. But if you do like coffee, their slogan is, "A good cup of coffee made better." Here's the info on getting there and getting Annie's stuff. It's all good.

ANNIE'S LATTE-DA COFFEE HOUSE
3213 Lincoln Way East
(very close to Perry High)
330-833-8022

And on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Annies-Latte-Da-Coffee-House/442812935753128