Remembering 'Greasy Bob' of Pizza Kwik

Owner Bob Huber was the real flavor of the hangout

Jefferson City said goodbye to a 40-year fixture and a beloved community member when Robert "Greasy Bob" Huber died on Tuesday.

Many current and former Jefferson City residents know Huber as the long-time owner of Pizza Kwik on East Miller Street and owner of DeBroeck's Market through the 1970s. They also remember him as a friendly, personable man with plenty of one-liners and acts of kindness to go around.

"It's extremely humbling," said Dana Plummer, Huber's daughter, about the flood of community support her family has received in the days since her father's passing. "I'm happy that everyone knows this great man that I got to know, but I also feel like maybe we took him for granted somewhat in that he did so many wonderful things."

Plummer recalls days spent delivering groceries from DeBroeck's with her father when she was younger, unaware he might have been footing the bill at times.

"I've had probably dozens of people come forward and tell me stories about how when their family was having hard times my dad gave them free groceries or gave them free pizzas. ... He and I would go take groceries places, but I never knew why or what we were doing," she said. "He loved Jefferson City. This was his hometown. He would have never dreamed of going anywhere else. He absolutely adored it."

Huber's welcoming personality made Pizza Kwik a homey hangout for many in Jefferson City over the years.

"It wasn't about the pizza. Yes, it was good. But Bob was the memory you have over the pizza. He could make you laugh so hard," said Amber Watson, who remembers dining out frequently at Pizza Kwik over the past several years since she and her now-husband began dating. "Bob would put I don't know how much money in the jukebox for us and just sit and talk."

When the conversation followed them out to the parking lot, Bob's wife, Judy, would have to tell them it was OK to cut him off and go home, Watson laughed.

The friendly atmosphere as well as the tasty pizza - recipes the Hubers concocted when they opened the restaurant in 1969 - were what made Pizza Kwik customers into regulars.

"When we were little tykes, our mom would buy us pizza as a special treat for us," said Michael Shellman, who grew up on Walsh Street near Pizza Kwik. "Bob always had the most inexpensive pizza, which was always good and hot. Always had to add extra cheese and listen to one of his jokes - for free!"

Huber's ready jokes account for many customers' best memories of him.

"One night we went in there, I needed to use the restroom, and he told me to leave a quarter on the toilet before I left," Watson said.

And he had more than one-liners.

"One day we were sitting there eating, and my kids didn't eat the crust. He came over and grabbed my pizza and took it outside," said Stephanie Garcia, another Pizza Kwik regular who has patronized the restaurant since age 5. "He said, "I had to feed my friends.' There was a family of opossums out there."

Garcia, now 36, takes her own children to Pizza Kwik on a regular basis.

"He loved to see the young kids grow up through the years," Plummer said of her father. "The Pizza Kwik customers, they were families that the kids had grown up and now it was their kids and grandkids coming in for pizza, and he loved that."

Plummer laughed that even after his cancer diagnosis and up until his death, Huber was as much himself as he ever had been.

"He went to the Pizza Kwik every single day, no matter what. Even while he was taking chemotherapy, even while he was hurting, he didn't miss a day," she said. "He wasn't going to give it up, and he stilled loved drinking his Miller Lite and his Stag."

Married to Judy for 51 years, he loved his family even more than his customers, Plummer added: "He had the most undying love for my mom. ... He told her she was beautiful five times a day."

For those who may wonder how Huber felt about his seemingly unflattering nickname, "Greasy Bob" had no problem with it.

"I can't tell you how it started, but there was a whole kind of subculture language around the Pizza Kwik. ... That's where the "Greasy Bob' thing came from. But he loved it," Plummer said. "He introduced himself everywhere he went as "Greasy Bob.'"

Pizza Kwik will live on in "Greasy Bob's" legacy, she added, noting the Huber family has no plans to close the restaurant or make changes to it.