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Returning to Big Rapids for Homecoming? Wonder if your favorite old haunt is still around? These three are.
Since 1926, Homecoming has been an integral part of the Ferris experience. Homecoming 2005 is set to take place on Saturday, Oct. 15, with the annual parade at noon in downtown Big Rapids and the Homecoming gridiron contest against Northern Michigan University.
The Web site www.ferris.edu/alumni/Homecoming has information about where to stay, directions to campus and an explanation of Ferris’ tailgate policy. Since accommodations in Big Rapids often fill up early, the site lists hotels, motels and resorts in Cadillac, Grand Rapids and Reed City. You can also e-mail a question from the site. There’s additional information about concerts and other events.
While on campus, visit the Card Wildlife Center, tour the Michigan Art Walk or hit the links for a late season round at Katke Golf Course. Information on these and other attractions is available by clicking on “Visitors” at www.ferris.edu.
Schubergs
There has been a saloon or bar and grill in operation
continuously at the site occupied by Schuberg’s Bar in downtown Big Rapids
since the late 19th century, beginning right after the recently completed
building was used as the city’s temporary jail - except for the little inconvenience
of Prohibition from 1920-28.
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Jeff Rumsey
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“During that period there was a gentleman named Johnson, I think, who operated here and turned it in to a kind of card room,” recounts current owner Jeff Rumsey. “Rumor has it that they still served a lot of beer in here. But who’s to say?”
The business still carries the name Carl Schuberg gave it when he bought the building in the early ’30s. “His wife operated a little restaurant right next door here, called Alice’s Alice’s Restaurant, how about that? They actually had a hole in the wall back there where they would serve food from the restaurant into the bar,” says Rumsey. “In the ’30s and ’40s, over there where I have my tap collection now, used to be a blackboard. During the Depression and the war years, people would put up whatever they had to sell or trade. A lot of business was transacted here. Still is.”
According to Rumsey, Schuberg’s probably began doing its own food preparation sometime in the 1940s. As a blue collar saloon, it concentrated on a lunch-time menu consisting primarily of hamburgers and chili, which were still the staple offerings when Rumsey began work there as a part-time cook in 1973.
Today, Rumsey has expanded Schuberg’s menu to include such items as a wild salmon salad, fettucini alfredo and a popular Friday seafood chowder. Rumsey says that when he first started to work at Schuberg’s, food sales accounted for only about 15-20 percent of business. Today, that figure is closer to 70 percent. While the menu has more choices, many visiting alums still make it a point to have their popular Schu-burger, and the -pound Big Schu.
Schuberg’s is the kind of place that when you return, you feel as though you never left. “A lot of this furniture is original stuff that dates back into the ’30s,” Rumsey notes. “Many of the tables and the smaller chairs with the rounded backs were all built in Big Rapids.” Patrons can see that same furniture still in use in photos from the 1930s adorning the walls although the men in the photos (“It was just a saloon then, always all men,” says Rumsey) largely forgo such amenities and simply stand at the bar.
A few months after Rumsey started cooking part-time, then-owner Shi Schuberg asked Rumsey if he wanted to work a little more. “Then about 1976, Shi asked me if I wanted to become his partner in this business,” Rumsey recalls. “He pretty much retired at that point.” Rumsey bought the last bit of Shi’s interest, as well as the building, in 1993.
Despite a decorative sign near the front door that reads,
“Schuberg’s - Jeff Rumsey, Prop.” bolted to a shelf that holds such memorabilia
as two of the establishment’s original brass spittoons, Rumsey doesn’t really
see himself in the role of ‘owner’. “I’ve had several employees over the
years who said, ‘Boy, I’d like to own this place.’ I tell them, you know,
I may have the title to it, but I don’t really own it. The people who walk
through the door own this place. I’m just the caretaker.”
Rumsey talks of visiting what had been one of his own
favorite places in Riverside, Calif. - an English style pub. “The last time
I went back there it had turned into a very upscale, Yuppie-type place with
brass and glass and plants,” he says. “It didn’t have any of the character
of an old English pub any more. It was disappointing, it really was. I keep
that in mind when I move things around in here.”
So while the menu may expand, the knotty pine paneling will probably remain for as long as Rumsey is proprietor. More importantly, he cites his staff (the longest-serving of whom have been with him almost 20 years) as well as his deliberation for a phrase he hears a lot from customers who have been away for some time: “This place hasn’t changed a bit!” And in many ways, although some things are different, they’re right.
Pizza King
If you haven’t been to Big Rapids lately, you might be surprised at the number of businesses that greet you as you exit the expressway and head toward campus. There’s Lowe’s, Meijer, Wal-mart, Kmart, Applebee’s, Bennigan’s, Bob Evans and a host of other chain stores and restaurants.
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Tim Taylor
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Over the years, the city of Big Rapids has certainly changed, but at the end of Perry Street just before you reach campus, one place remains the same.
Students studying for exams or just out after a late night with friends can still enjoy one of Pizza King’s freshly made strombolis: 10 inches of pizza dough rolled, folded over and stuffed with sauce, cheese, your favorite toppings and baked to perfection. Add a pop to that during the lunch hour and you have the perfect $5 luncheon special.
Tim Taylor, owner of Pizza King since 1969, continues to serve up some of the best ’za in town. Even though the competition has grown tremendously, he has kept his business going for more than 36 years. Taylor uses quality ingredients in his pizzas, subs and strombolis, which he feels distinguishes him from some of the area’s newer restaurants.
“When I started this business there weren’t as many places to eat,” says Taylor. “Now there are many more, including five other pizza chains.”
The original Pizza King was located where the current College of Pharmacy building stands today, explains Taylor. “It was destroyed by a fire in 1969. The original owner didn’t want to reopen, so I bought the business.”
When Taylor re-launched Pizza King, a large cheese pizza
with pepperoni cost $2.79 - tax included. Today, the menu at Pizza King
has expanded to include eight specialty pizzas, appetizers, subs and wraps.
You can find Taylor at the restaurant most days, managing the business and talking with customers enjoying a fresh baked pizza or lunch-time sub.
“I really enjoy seeing current students and alumni,” says Taylor. “I ran into a Pharmacy alum at a drug store in South Dakota once. I asked him to help me find the right over-the-counter cold medication. When I inquired him how much it was, he said, ‘I’ll trade you for a pepperoni and ham stromboli!’”
The Sawmill
Located next to the White Pine Trail, Bill Proctor’s Sawmill Saloon hosts the best live bands in town.
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Linda Proctor
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Still a favorite of many locals and college students 21 or older, the Sawmill has been serving food, drinks and entertainment for more than 35 years. Owned and operated by the Proctor family, alumna Linda Proctor (B’72) is the Sawmill’s long-time manager.
Appropriately named for its location on the site of an old sawmill, the quaint tavern is open for business 365 days a year. In the winter, the Sawmill is packed with snowmobilers relishing a fried halibut dinner and the live music. During the summer, patrons enjoy the outdoor patio, play horseshoes, or just relax around the fire pit.
On Wednesdays throughout the year, the Sawmill has open mic night, where those who are musically inclined can showcase their talents. The business also hosts several fundraisers to help Mecosta County organizations.
“I belong to Friends of the Big Rapids Library. We have a benefit for them every year to show our support,” says Proctor. “We have eight live bands and a chicken barbeque to raise as much money as we can.”
At the last benefit, two men came in and said they hadn’t been there since 1969, the year it opened.
“Every week we have people coming back that haven’t been here in years,” says Proctor, who feels good that the Sawmill is well-remembered by so many people. “We draw everybody…college students, town folks, office workers, factory workers and professors,” comments Proctor. “It’s like Cheers here.”
Back in the ’70s, the Sawmill was famous for such bluegrass bands as Virgin Timbre, the Union Street Boogie Band, Paradise Mountain Boys and Cabbage Crik that graced its stage.
Procter says she’s trying to get together a Cabbage Crik
reunion. Alums who remember the band (and those who wish they did) can check
out www.sawmillsaloon.com
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