Rico’s roots run deep in Downtown Pullman

BY ADRIANA JANOVICH

RICO'S PUBLIC HOUSE
200 E. Main St.
(509) 332-6566
ricospubpullman.com

Rico still watches over the place.

From his perennial perch in a black-and-white photograph hanging high up between the back bar and a bookshelf in the front of the restaurant, Tony Talarico, the “Rico” of Rico’s Public House, forever welcomes patrons to his former pub. He owned the place for 30 years, but it’s been in the current owner’s family even longer than that. And it has been a fixture in downtown Pullman even longer still.

“Tony’s like our godfather,” says Tawny Szumlas, the second generation of her family to own and operate the landmark establishment. Her father bought the place in 1980, three years after Talarico sold it. “He hangs out over the bar and looks over us,” she says.

Established in 1909, Rico’s Public House is one of Pullman’s most beloved businesses. While it has grown and changed since it first opened, it has endured — surviving past Prohibition and the Great Depression, other economic downturns, two world wars, global pandemics, and more. Next year, it celebrates 115 years in operation, making it one of the town’s oldest businesses — a second living room for generations of Washington State University Cougars and Pullman residents. In 2023, it won the Legacy on Main Award for its longtime role as an economic and cultural anchor in downtown Pullman. The award was presented to Szumlas at the Washington State Main Street Program's awards ceremony in Vancouver last October.

“I love this,” says Szumlas, sitting at a table in the pub and looking around the place. ‘This is my home.”

Szumlas was raised at Rico’s. She was just a year old when her dad, Roger Johnson, bought the business. And, she says, “I was four years old when I decided I wanted to do what my dad did.” She’s been running Rico’s since 2005. She bought the business from her dad ten years later.

Previous owners “Tony and Merle were good friends,” Szumlas says. “They used to come in here when (Johnson) owned it. Now, he,” she says, pointing at her dad, sitting at the bar, “comes in and hangs out when I’m here.”

Szumlas used to work for him. Now Johnson works for her. She also pays him rent. While she owns the business, he still owns the building. And while he’s mostly retired, he still comes in “not every day” — but almost — to sit at the bar that he built and tally receipts. He also does the books and occasionally plays guitar at his former pub.

When Johnson bought the bar in 1980, he was 25. Pitchers peppered the floor, catching drips. The sellers “were desperate, and I had no money,” he recalls. That summer, he replaced the leaky roof. Eight years later, he gutted the old watering hole from “dirt to rafters,” giving the place the English pub vibe it enjoys today.

Walls are exposed brick and book-lined. A collection of tap handles decorates the front wall. Custom woodwork makes the place feel like it’s been here forever. “There’s not one right angle in this place,” Szumlas says.

Rico’s started as a gathering place for men to play cards and pool and, most of all, to smoke. The business, opened by E.W. Thorpe as the Smokehouse, revolved around tobacco and, by the mid-1920s, became so popular that it needed more space.

In 1927, the Smokehouse relocated to the former site of the Liberty Theater, which moved across Grand Avenue, Pullman’s main drag, and became the Cordova. Today, the Cordova Theatre houses Pullman Foursquare Church. The old Liberty location still houses the business that became Rico’s.

A year after Thorpe moved his establishment, he sold it to Merle Ebner, who — in 1932 — began selling beer and wine. Talarico acquired an interest in the business in 1947, “working in partnership with Grover Gentry to buy” it, according to his obituary. Customers called him by his nickname, Rico.

Talarico is credited with transforming the old smoking parlor into a true public house. He made the place more welcoming for women, adding women’s restrooms and hiring the wives of foreign and graduate students. He also added jazz nights — and other performances. A 1966 advertisement in the Daily Evergreen, WSU’s student newspaper, called for “strictly amateur” performers 21 and older — “folk singers, musicians, combos, dancers, etc.” — to “come out in the open and give us some new talent to check!!!” The ad also noted he was remodeling the space and that performers would receive “chow” and “liquid refreshment.” By then, people were informally referring to the place as Rico’s.

Born in 1915 in Greenacres, Talarico grew up in the Spokane area. His mother, Rose Mary Orsi, immigrated to Spokane from her native Italy when she was 13. When he was 13, Talarico landed a job at what’s now known as the Historic Davenport Hotel. The U.S. Army veteran married Ferne Smith in 1937, and they had a daughter, Betsy.

Talarico owned and operated the Smokehouse for three decades, selling it, according to Rico’s website, in 1977. In 1978, according to his obituary, he and Ferne retired to Clarkston, where they lived for 28 years before he died in 2006. Long after he sold the place, he would still come in once a year, says Johnson, who officially renamed the establishment in Talarico’s honor.

Rico’s remains a favorite hangout for WSU professors, alumni, and students, who frequent its open mic nights, live music performances, and trivia. On St. Patrick’s Day, Rico’s has been known to get so crowded that Szumlas is forced to turn patrons away. She doesn’t mind. “I’m a Neill,” she says. “I’m Irish. It’s my holiday.”

She and her father are descendants of Thomas Neill, who came to America from Ireland in 1879, started Pullman’s first newspaper, and served as an early Whitman County Superior Court judge. He was instrumental in helping establish Washington State Agricultural College, now WSU, in Pullman. It’s possible he would have visited Rico’s in its early days when it was still known as the Smokehouse.

The former 21-and-over establishment now admits minors, serves liquor in addition to beer and wine and has been increasing its focus on elevated pub grub, hiring executive chef Hunter Yackeren two years ago. He’s upped the handheld options.

Front-of-the-house shift lead Juliann Yusko, a WSU student studying apparel, merchandising, design, and textiles, recommends “any” of them, especially the pulled pork. She’s been working at Rico’s since 2022. “I really love working with Tawny,” Yusko says. “I think the history is amazing. That Rico’s has been able to survive two world wars, two pandemics, and the Depression is amazing. If you’re making a day trip to Pullman, it’s a good place to stop. It encompasses so much of the history of Pullman, and it has great food.”

Rico’s is known for its Reuben sandwich, served on rye bread and stuffed with corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese. The brisket and bratwurst sandwiches are Johnson’s current favorite menu items.

“When I started working here we didn’t have any cooks,” Szumlas says. “If someone ordered food, the bartender would cook it.” That’s partly because Rico’s has “a janitor closet-sized kitchen. We pivoted to food,” Szumlas says. But, “it’s been very slow and gradual.”

She worked at Rico’s during college, earning her bachelor’s degree at WSU in hospitality business management in the early aughts. Her brother and cousins worked at Rico’s, too. “It was kind of the family farm,” Szumlas says, emphasizing, “My dad did not give us any special treatment.”

He did encourage her to live and work outside of Pullman in her early 20s, even though her heart was at Rico’s. So she moved to California for two years, working at the bar in the luxe JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort and Spa in Palm Desert. “I had a lot of fun,” she says. But the experience underscored what she already knew: she belongs at Rico’s.

A couple of doors down Main Street is Neill’s Flowers and Gifts, started by Johnson’s grandfather, Royal “Roy” Neill, in 1910, a year after the Smokehouse that would become Rico’s opened. Although it’s no longer in the family, it remains — like Rico’s — one of Pullman’s longest-running businesses. Johnson’s mother, Barbara Jean Neill Johnson, used to work there and, according to her obituary, “would often come home smelling of roses.”

Today, Rico’s is open 365 days a year. Christmas Day night is one of its busiest. From the reopening after the 1988 remodel to early 2020, it hadn’t missed a day of operation.

That changed during the COVID-19 shutdown. Those were challenging times for the restaurant business. “We didn’t really know what was going to happen,” Szumlas says. “You adapt or die,” Johnson says.

Yusko enjoys the atmosphere so much she can be found here on her days off, working on homework. “I live here,” she says. “This is my study spot. I spent countless hours here working on projects for school. It’s a safe, very friendly, inviting environment.”

And, says Szumlas, “It’s right where I started.”

Back then, she says, “I think we had eight people on staff. Now we have more than 30. We hire almost exclusively WSU students.”

Szumlas is now a mother of three with a 17-year-old and 12-year-old twins. Someday, they might attend WSU and even work at Rico’s themselves.

“Rico’s helped me go to college,” she says. “ Now it’s just a circle, the circle of life.”

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