If you are not observant while traveling northwest on Highway 71, Smithville will be in the rearview mirror and so then you will have missed it all. It's not on the main road but off to the south a block or so. We have driven past Smithville many times but this time, in order not to miss it, we decided to make that our destination.
Smithville's main street runs parallel to the highway that runs north-south and therefore parallel to Highway 71. Highway 71 connecting Houston with Austin runs on the north side of the Colorado River and Smithville is on the south side of the river. This narrow separation from the main trunk line highway is what has spared Smithville from the ultimate doom of either death from isolation or ruin from big city influence.
We often travel miles and miles for a new lunch experience and this trip was no different in that it was a 90-minute drive to reach our destination of the Old World Bakery and Cafe. The bakery part is what caught our attention because good bakeries are not easy to find in small towns in Texas.
We arrived at close to 11 AM midweek and approached the counter to order from the menu--one of those menus in small print----everything in print these days is small----and elevated on the wall giving an opportunity to test the crick in your neck. We opted for the club sandwich. We always test the order taker regarding the size of the club sandwich because more often than not, one club sandwich is enough food for the two of us, being the bargain hunters we happen to be. But there was a delay in ordering because the order taker (same as a barista in a coffee shop) had to excuse herself to attend to an order taken earlier. We were left as loners to chat about being left in a lurch at lunch--but not a bother because we were having fun with the experience of a new joint.
Having placed our order after confirming that one order would satisfy our pangs of hunger, we could not resist adding a cinnamon apple scone, about the only evidence of the bakery side of the place showing evidence. We chose a high table along the edge of the room where we had a good vantage point for observing the noon activity, but so far there was none.
Then, suddenly, people started to pour in---so many all of a sudden that a line was formed at the ordering counter. No one seemed to have the need to look at the menu on the wall, as these people had obviously been here before. Even to the extent that two men, apparently hard workers, came in and avoided the line by just sitting down with two other cronies they seemed to know--probably a daily routine for them.
Here are the local people lined up for their lunch.
The duo who came in and sat down without ordering were now busy devouring their soup and nodding hellos to their many friends standing in line waiting to order. On occasions, the older of the two would get up from his lunch, shrug as if limbering his muscles, tweak his buddy's nose with a friendly gesture, and then chase down some other need like sugar for his iced tea.
Next to our table, three men sat down with their lunch, and we observed their food fare and decided that they would end up eating their chicken salad sandwiches with a fork as they were having the same problem of holding it all together. Faintly, but only in our minds, we heard the lyrics of Streets of Laredo where the lines go I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy when we saw his tee shirt with a small plane motif. We said to him, I see by your outfit that you must be a pilot. He said yes, and the three of them were associated with a small plane flying based out of the local airport. We chatted for a while and in mentioning the upcoming Kingsbury Fly-in, they said they planned to fly to the grass strip airfield in Kingsbury in early November. We agreed to keep an eye out for each other there. Later, we saw them driving back to the airport in a restored 1965 Olds convertible.
Not long after 12:30, the flow of customers stopped, almost as if the scene was a boarding house and had only one hour of operation. The line went empty, the noise level diminished and the staff of the cafe began to tidy the place for the next day. For us, it was a serendipitous experience.
We then walked the block to check on some antique stores and encountered the usual conflicting emotions of buying what we found interesting versus finding a way to sell what we already own. For example, there was a baseball mitt on the wall, looking all the like of an orphan as it had no information about the previous owner and where it might have spent its years of sandlot play. Quite a contrast from my mitt of the same vintage having just sold it to a Louisiana collector who valued the information on the history of the baseball mitt.
We never miss the library in a small town, and we found this one on the north end of Main Street. Their store of books for sale was slim but we did find two to buy and now have them to read.
Next on the list of never-to-miss is the coffee shop. We found that as a small sit-down coffee area in the Smithville Country Store. We were the only customers and the coffee was good. The coffee person, in higher social circles known as a barista, began karaokeing (hate it when writers make verbs out of nouns) to the song of Call Me Darlin. We hollered over to her and agreed it was a good old song by David Alan Coe. But the coincidence came later when we picked up a shopping guide for the October Warrenton/Round Top antiques festival where inside we found a two-page article on the very same song, including a recap of all the lyrics.
Well, almost needless to say, we had a good time in Smithville, USA
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