Starbucks crew can't curb enthusiasm after actress visits

Courtesy photo Actress Cheryl Hines poses for a photo with Greencastle Starbucks employee Paige Paquin.

A TV and film actress put the "star" in Starbucks in Greencastle Sunday afternoon.

And crew members at Starbucks could scarcely curb their enthusiam.

A coffee shop stop by actress Cheryl Hines turned into a brush-with-celebrity moment for Starbucks employees like Alex Higgins and Paige Paquin on an otherwise routine summer day.

Alex Higgins

About noon, Hines and a friend hit the Greencastle Starbucksn, Higgins recalled, explaining that she had pegged Hines as somebody special right away.

"I said to myself, 'Hey, that's Robin Williams' wife in (the movie) 'RV,'" the 20-year-old barista noted.

The 50-year-old Hines is probably best known for her role as Larry David's wife Cheryl on HBO's long-running "Curb Your Enthusiasm," for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards. She has also starred as Dallas Royce on the ABC sitcom "Suburgatory" and has appeared in such films as "The Ugly Truth" and "Waitress" with Keri Russell.

Hines ordered a skinny vanilla latte and had already gone back outside the cafe when her friend spied Higgins staring at the actress.

"I thought it was her but I was nervous about asking for fear it wasn't her," Higgins said. "Her friend saw me kind of creeping on her, and asked, 'Do you want to take a picture with Cheryl?'"

So Hines came back inside and took pictures with Higgins, Paquin and others, and courteously chatted a little, even spending a moment or two face-timing with a Starbucks employee's brother.

Paquin posted her picture on Facebook, while Higgins put hers on Snapchat and by mid-afternoon "a couple of people had already made comments" wondering what in the world Hines was doing in Greencastle.

Apparently Hines and her friend were just passing through, either en route to or coming home from a funeral in Illinois.

But how that translates into a detour onto U.S. 231 through Greencastle remains a mystery.

Regardless, it certainly made the day for the gang at Starbucks.

"A lot of my co-workers were pretty jealous," Higgins smiled.

"But it sure made for an interesting day."