How long has it been since you have seen a pay phone?
Or used one?
One more question. Do you remember how many coins were required to make a call on the telephones that once were at our beck and call on roadsides, in businesses, and airports?
Don’t fret about these questions.
I can tell you where to get easy answers and at the same time order breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or maybe just a piece of pie.
The answer is Schmucker’s Restaurant on Reynolds Road, which has been known for 70 years for good, reasonably priced blue plate specials and, especially, pie.
Those attributes are still accurate, but recently the old wooden telephone booth that stands in the corner of the restaurant on a back wall and not too far from the counter has been gaining attention, thanks to three veteran telephone linemen who installed a telephone that fits the old booth.
I have to admit that the phone booth was never a priority when visiting Schmucker’s, but then a letter was received from Jake Swaninger of Toledo.
Mr. Swaninger, a retired Ohio Bell technician, explained that he, Mike Tucker, and Al Kern, also retired technicians, have been patronizing Schmucker’s for more than 50 years and have always been happy with the food and the 1950s ambience.
“The one glaring exception,” Mr. Swaninger wrote, “was the new chrome payphone in the vintage phone booth. It looked out of place. It just didn’t look right to an old telephone man and was a source of mild irritation for a long time.”
Owner Doug Schmucker agreed to the technicians’ proposal that a refurbished three slot payphone be installed to replace the large chrome one, but he reminded the volunteers that it is the only telephone line into the restaurant and therefore is used for incoming orders as well as outgoing calls.
The project took a year to complete. Al, Jake, and Mike replaced all of the telephone wire in the building, rewiring the phone booth, and installing what they term as a “beautiful, three-slot rotary-dial payphone.”
“The bottom line,” Mr. Swaninger continued, “is now things are back in balance in the restaurant.” He believes that the phone he and his friends installed may be the only rotary dial, three-slot telephone used daily in Ohio.
And, best of all, the new-old phone works fine. It requires a quarter, dime, and a nickel to call out. When it rings, chances are good that a waitress in the dining room or at the counter will hear it and dash into the phone booth to receive a take out order.
The Toledo restaurant with the big “Good Food” sign began as a dairy bar by Doug’s grandparents, Harvey and Nola Schmucker, who, according to family memories, believed customers would return if meals were priced reasonably and they didn’t go away hungry.
The dairy bar was known for hand dipped chocolate-covered ice cream bars that Harvey and Nola’s son Allen peddled around the neighborhood from a freezer box on his bicycle.
Allen, Doug’s father, owned the restaurant until 2000 with his wife, Alice, by his side. Alice is a regular customer at the restaurant and is credited for continuing the pie-baking tradition and raising the quality to local prominence.
Doug grew up in the family business and took his turn bussing tables and washing dishes before taking charge of the operations in the mid-1980s.
Allen had it all wrong when he thought Doug was too bashful to be successful in the business. Doug will be the first to say that talking with customers, hearing their tales and sharing his, is one of his great pleasures.
The name tags he and his wife, Patty, wear tell the commitment families have in successful restaurant operations. Doug’s tag reads “Since birth” and Patty’s reads, “Since marriage.” Doug and Patty have two children. Their son, Jason, is an aero engineer in Indianapolis and works on Rolls Royce jet engines. Daughter Natalie Schmucker is a teacher specializing in refugee children.
The Ohio Bell retirees recommend Wimpy burgers and shakes, but from the get-go, when Grandma Nola baked the first pies in 1948, the name Schmucker pie has been synonymous with homemade quality. Doug and Patty say chocolate peanut butter, caramel apple walnut, and coconut cream are the most popular kinds of pies, but I am partial to old fashioned custard unless Thanksgiving dictates pumpkin.
Schmucker’s has never been open on Sundays.
LOCALLY MADE
Buying products that are produced by local entrepreneurs and produce that is grown in northwest Ohio shows a loyalty that is also satisfying.
Schmucker’s pies are one of several Toledo and regionally produced food products sold at Sautters supermarkets in Sylvania and Waterville.
The pies, in small and standard sizes, are featured on weekends. Other locally produced food products that Sautter’s Market features include LaRoe’s and Grumpy’s poppy seed dressings, Waterville Honey Works honey, Haas Bakery Polish coffee cake, Hertzfeld Poultry Farms eggs in Grand Rapids, Ohio; MacQueen Orchards apples and peaches (in season).
Northwest Ohio products that are carried by Sautters and other area supermarkets include Timko’s Betty’s dressings, Toledo; Toft’s ice cream, Sandusky; Dietsch Brothers chocolates, Findlay; Ballreich chips, Tiffin; Jenny’s Old Fashioned Popcorn, Ridgeville; Angry Irishman, rubs and sauces, Woodville; Roots canned chicken, Fremont; Daisyfield ham, Sandusky; Brinkman Turkey Farms, canned meat and chicken and turkey pot pies, Findlay.
As holiday gift shopping nears we are reminded that Hickory Farms and Tony Packo products are both prides of Toledo and Mon Ami wines are bottled in Port Clinton.
Mary Alice Powell is a retired Blade food editor. Contact her at: poseypowell@aol.com.
First Published November 17, 2018, 9:45 p.m.
