The regulars at Cedar Tavern all know Rob Gauthier.
Gauthier is a bartender who prides himself on his ability to cheer someone up when they’re having a bad day, whether that’s through a well-timed joke or just a smile.
Gauthier was born and raised in Leelanau County. He graduated from Glen Lake Community Schools in 1998 before earning a degree in the culinary arts from the private university Baker College. He said he briefly cooked at the Sugar Loaf Ski Resort before becoming a local bartender. But he has not always lived here.
Gauthier has a deep voice, but he’s obviously cheerful and energetic. (He started calling this writer “bud” almost immediately.) He said that people have been pointing out his radio-friendly voice for years. Comments like these led him to go back to college at Specs Howard School for Media Arts in Southfield and pursue another career in broadcast media.
He briefly became a news and weather presenter, but Gauthier found he enjoyed the more creative parts of radio, like writing interludes and commercial scripts and sharing his ideas with the rest of the newsroom. He soon took another career turn into independent film, working as an editor for small B-movies – his words – in Missouri.
Gauthier lived and worked in Missouri for 11 years before a family tragedy led him back to his home state. His aunt and uncle, Rita and Jim Cwengros, died in early 2013. The couple were on a mission trip in Haiti with Holy Spirit Church of Grand Rapids when they were in a fatal vehicle accident. Gauthier couldn’t make it back for their funeral.
“When I visited their graves to pay my respects, I realized I needed to come back and be closer to family,” Gauthier said.
Another reason that Gauthier came back was the small-town atmosphere of Cedar. There’s fresh air and unique scents in northern Michigan near the Great Lakes. And Gauthier said he enjoys talking with the usual customers, plus the seasonal residents, tourists, and occasional celebrity sighting. Gauthier said he handed a carryout order to former Detroit Piston Bill Laimbeer once.
The feeling is clearly mutual. When Gauthier, his wife, and infant daughter moved into a fixer-upper just south of Cedar, they got some help from construction workers he met at the bar. And when Gauthier had surgery to remove a tumor from his neck late last year, he was surprised by support from the community.
“One of my customers stopped by my place and gave me enough soup for seven days, because I could only eat soup while recovering from the surgery. And all my coworkers stepped up and covered for me while I was gone for two weeks, even though I thought I was only going to be gone for one week,” Gauthier said.
When asked how he manages good conversations with his customers while getting everything done at the restaurant, Gauthier said he doesn’t think of himself and other staff as serving many individual tables. Instead, he imagines one big table with many people, like at a family gathering.
“I wait on people like I would want them to wait on my grandma,” he explained.
And he still gets a chance to flex his vocal muscles every year at the Cedar Polka Fest, where he introduces performers as master of ceremonies. Gauthier said that he looks forward to Polka Fests as opportunities to carry on the family legacy, because his parents used to perform in them regularly before they retired as musicians.
Gauthier is also one of the organizers for the annual Brian Nachazel Memorial Softball tournament, which is held at the Cedar Community Park like the Polka Fest.
