Current Cuisine celebrates 20 years

Karyn Stillwell-Current and Steve Current celebrate 20 years of Current Cuisine cooking.

By Susan Gartner

What’s the first sign of spring for you? Is it the neighborhood cat lazily sunning herself in the middle of the street? The crowning of the first crocus? Temperatures that allow you to leave the house without a coat?

The first sign of spring for me is all three cafe tables crowded with coatless people eating and chatting outside of Current Cuisine at 237 Xenia Avenue.

“People will sit out there and have soup when it’s 30 degrees,” Karyn Stillwell-Current said in a recent interview. “Even when we had that big snowstorm, we had to shovel the sidewalk to put the tables out.”

Stillwell-Current and her husband, Steve Current, owners of the gourmet deli and catering business, don’t mind the shoveling. It’s all part of the customer service that has allowed the store to celebrate its 20th anniversary this week. As a way to say “Thank You,” on Saturday, May 3, the public is invited to help celebrate. Hors d’oeuvres will be served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Celebrating an anniversary of their own, the couple will be married 25 years this August. They met when they were both working at The Winds, she as a waitress and he as a cook. Their catering business first began in the kitchen of the John Bryan Community Center back when the center had a kitchen.

“We were there almost four years after it had been a high school,” said Stillwell-Current. “They were going to totally remodel the whole place and get rid of the kitchen and we had to be out. The space that we’re in now was called the Village Green Grocer and was owned by Bruce and Carol Cornett. It was more like a grocery store with fresh produce. We bought it from them.”

Even though catering remains a substantial part of the business, it’s not the most visible. As the primary contact, Stillwell-Current meets with clients to discuss their catering needs for business luncheons, weddings, bar mitzvahs and memorial services.

“I don’t think a lot of people know the amount of food that goes out the back door,” she said.

January and February are typically slow months for the deli even with the die-hard customers eating their soup at the outside tables. The catering that happens in the back keeps the deli operating in front.

“If we didn’t cater,” said Stillwell-Current, “we couldn’t afford to be in business.”

A stable of long-time employees helps keep both sides of the business running smoothly, including Cecilia Kimball and Joe Greer, who have been with them for 18 years; kitchen manager Bill Trent (10 years); and baker Kate Meinke and business manager Anne Miles (both six years).

“We wouldn’t be in business for 20 years if it wasn’t for the support of the villagers and our dedicated employees,” said Current.

When they’re not at work, the couple lives on a 25-acre farm just outside of town where at various times they have raised geese, chickens, goats, zucchini, tomatoes, a miniature donkey, and two sons, Andrew and Jonathan. This year they will celebrate their wedding anniversary with an unprecedented event — a two-week vacation.

* The author is a free lance photographer and writer for the News.