Celebrating 75 years, Battle Creek's Smitty's is small business success story

BATTLE CREEK - Owner Paul Jakubiak held up a photo of Smitty's Sports Shop from when it opened in 1948. However, there was no need. The image looked almost exactly the same as what you see when you walk into the store today.

As 2023 begins, Smitty's Sports Shop is enjoying its 75th year in business at its location on Michigan Avenue.

In the world of online shopping and big box stores, Smitty's is a cherished relic of days long gone — literally and figuratively.

"I'm tickled pink that Smitty's is still intact," said Elizabeth O'Donnell, the granddaughter of 'Grandma Kay', second wife of the original 'Smitty' — Murray Smith. "I think Grandma Kay would be thrilled Smitty's is still going. She might be sad that my brother and I sold the place back when we did. But the person who bought it promised that he would do what he could to try and keep the Smitty's name going — and darn if it has."

Murray Smith opened a humble store at 1408 W. Michigan in 1948, selling equipment for outdoor and recreation sports as well as making and engraving trophies. Jakubiak and his wife, Cat, are the current owners. And like the promise made by Barry Beamish, who originally bought it from the Smith family, Jakubiak is dedicated to keeping the Smitty's name alive.

Although, as a business person, he says it is getting harder and harder to do that.

"We have been doing some research with the 75 years coming up," Jakubiak said. "We found an article in the 1970s about Smitty's and how, even back then, it was hard to keep a small business like this alive against the bigger stores, like Kmart and others.

"Now, we have to battle against online buyers and Amazon."

Today, Smitty's sells mostly fishing equipment and offers hunting and fishing licenses. It has a unique feel in that it features many Michigan-made products. All the while keeping the same look of a store from a different era.

But the battle to stay open is real. Smitty's differentiates itself by offering such classes as fishing pole building and fly tying, among others. That is how Jakubiak ("Jake") got involved in Smitty's in the first place. Under the former owner, he started running classes on fly fishing and tying flies in the back of the shop under the name of Uncle Jake's Fly Shop. That led to him eventually taking ownership of the entire store.

Todd Sidnam has helped with those classes for about 10 years now and can speak, firsthand, about how places like Smitty's are becoming rarer by the year.

"It's a huge deal to have some of these stores still around. We need them," said the lifelong 58-year-old Battle Creek resident, who teaches pole building as part of the Uncle Jake's wing of Smitty's. "What bothers me about everyone buying stuff online is that there is nobody to teach them what they need to know to use that stuff. They will come into Smitty's and ask for lessons on how to use the stuff they bought on Amazon. It's ridiculous.

"It means a lot to the community to have someone here still to teach that stuff. It's special to have that kind of place here in Battle Creek ... not every community has that."

No, not every town has a place that has been around for more than seven decades. A place many remember going to as a kid, maybe tagging along with mom or dad, who maybe used to come to Smitty's with their parents.

"We have a tremendous base because of the people who have been coming in over these 75 years," Jakubiak said. "I ran into a guy who tied flies for Smitty's when he was a kid and he had to be in his 80s.

"We have people all the time who come in and say they come in every year to buy their license because it's tradition. Maybe they are even from out of town now, but they drive in to buy their license here because their grandfather bought them their first license here, so they come in every year before deer season."

A lot of that dedication is due to the years the original Smitty put into his store before his death in 1986 and how his wife kept it going until her death in 2006.

And O'Donnell isn't shocked that 75 years later, Smitty's looks almost exactly how it did when it opened.

"Not surprising to me that the building hasn't changed much. Smitty was never big on change," O'Donnell said. "He liked to spend his money other ways. He liked to gamble a bit, play cards, go to Vegas some. He and Grandma Kay would go to Vegas and play blackjack."

She also talked about how the look of Smitty's wasn't as important as what it stood for.

"Grandma Kay kept every piece of paper and I was going through some letters and there was one from a guy who worked for Smitty when he was a teenager," O'Donnell said. "It was talking about how much he appreciated that Smitty would always give teenagers a job to keep them busy or keep them out of trouble. That struck me, because then I remembered how, when I was growing up and we would visit, I would always see Grandma Kay and Smitty and a couple of teenagers in the store and that made that letter come to life a bit.

"Things are different now. You don't have those kind of mom-and-pop stores that used to keep a community together. I remember how Smitty would sponsor just about every sport in town and have his name on the back of shirts. Nowadays, you see McDonald's and Chick-fil-A sponsoring teams. But back then, when we would come to visit in the summer, he would take us to ballgames because he would get a kick out of seeing his name on the back of a shirt."

The Smitty's name has faded some in recent years. Not everyone knows that Smitty's has been around for 75 years. The small, nondescript store used to be partially hidden by another longtime business, Spanky's Tavern, before that closed and was torn down. Now, there is a somewhat better view of Smitty's from the street.

"We are kind of like that best-kept-secret kind of place. But we don't want to be a best-kept secret," Jakubiak said.

Smitty's, also has to fight against the whims of the weather. This is the season when the small shop usually would be bustling with Michiganders wanting to get ice fishing equipment. However, the warm temperatures are not helping.

Jakubiak and his wife are retired from their jobs from earlier in life. And Smitty's isn't their only source of income. So they allow themselves to close for a few days at a time when the weather is warm in the winter or even last month, when they wanted to spend some family time together during the holidays.

"We aren't in it for the money. The money is nice, and we lose our butts to online and to weather like this, so it's a challenge," Jakubiak said. "With no ice, some days are really slow. And we close, and since it's not our main thing, we can do that. ... We still have the classes and all of that and that really helps.

"And we tell our customers, we may have to close for a few days because of this or that. They all say, that's fine. But they say, just don't close completely.

"They say, keep Smitty's alive."

Bill Broderick can be reached at bbroderi@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow him on Twitter: @billbroderick.

This article originally appeared on Battle Creek Enquirer: Celebrating 75 years, Smitty's is small business success story