Malissa Smith: Food, friends see her through challenges of blindness

Malissa Smith pushes her lunch cart from office to office on the fourth floor, as she does every day. She delivers sandwiches, sodas, chips and cookies to all floors of the Capitol building and is greeted favorably wherever she goes.
Malissa Smith pushes her lunch cart from office to office on the fourth floor, as she does every day. She delivers sandwiches, sodas, chips and cookies to all floors of the Capitol building and is greeted favorably wherever she goes.

Malissa Smith is blessed with the broad smile of a woman who knows no strangers, the laugh of a person who appreciates your jokes and an tireless personality.

Oh, and did that description mention Smith is legally blind?

A pseudo tumor severed her optic nerve when she was 31.

That tidbit is important when getting to know Smith, who is found five days a week with her food cart tooling around the marble halls of the Missouri Capitol, literally going door to door with tasty, hand-prepared sandwiches and wraps, drinks, candy, cookies and other goodies.

It's all part of her job with The Capitol Grill, the restaurant in the basement of the Capitol, her place of employment since July 2006. For most of the past decade, she ran the cash register and was a management-level employee of the facility, which currently is leased to Peachtree Catering of Columbia. Since 2013, she's stocked the food cart and wheeled it around all four floors of the Capitol serving regular customers and newbies alike.

"I make them egg salad, chicken salad, roast beef. I choose the appropriate breads. I try to vary it on a daily basis so they get what they want," Smith said. "I really enjoy a good rapport with the people. If they want a BLT, they'll get a BLT."

From 10:30 a.m. throughout the lunch hour, Smith maneuvers her cart, often getting visual assistance from the staffers, representatives and senators who know her.

"I don't know them; some of them I do, but a lot of them know my name and they'll ask if they can help Melissa do this or that. We just have a good rapport," she said.

That rapport is so good that she often sells out, as she did twice this past week - twice in one day, in fact. Her best customers and biggest sales come on the first and fourth floors. "Those are my people," she said.

That includes when the big crowds of school children hit the Capitol, as they do every year.

"I know the building real well, and when the kids come I usually head back to the restaurant," Smith said. "Most people know I am blind and are respectful to me, and enough people are around to help me if I need it."

Smith's work day is not so much unlike that of a sighted person. She gets up at 7 a.m. and walks from her apartment off Truman Boulevard to her doorstep, where she is met by the OATS bus and its staff. Just as co-workers Catherine, Eric and Tony are her sighted allies at The Capitol Grill, employees of the OATS system provide escorts from her apartment to the bus, from the bus into the Capitol and to the restaurant and, at the end of the day, from the restaurant to the bus and then to her apartment.

For Smith, "it's a good life," she said. "I have a good time on the job; there are no real problems. It's kind of amazing, I guess. Some people might think it's not so good, but I think it is very good."

Not that it's always been good. A couple of times customers have cheated her, telling her she was getting a larger bill than was tendered for their food. "The police always catch up with those people when I find out I've been short-changed. But that's on them; I don't let it get me down."

Smith has a son, Jordan Glasgow, and two grandchildren, Keyira and Lamira, who are in school at Moberly. They visit her and she visits them in Moberly, where she lived in her childhood.

It's a full and happy life, Smith said, even without her vision. She often serves as a volunteer, advocating at the Capitol for others with disabilities.

"If I can help someone else, I'm available," she said, with a lifting of the voice and a widening of the smile.