Tynan and Ian Flanagan couldn’t help it.
They had to go back. They wanted to remember.
Yes, they wanted to promote their new store at the crossroads of Iron Works Road, and Rockingham and South treets. It used to be Cimo’s South Street Deli, owned by the ever-present John Cimikoski, and now the Flanagans have it, returning home, their childhood house a few yards down Iron Works Road.
That’s why they couldn’t help it. That’s why they had to go back. The boys played a lot of sandlot-type sports growing up in that neighborhood, which is to say they organized their own basketball and baseball games. No adults.
Now, 30 years later, with the inside of their new business under heavy construction and lots invested in it, and with wives and children and careers and rental property and work as master electricians, Ian chose to point across the street, halting our talk about his new business, switching attention to a snapshot that will never leave him.
“Banzhoff Stadium is right over there,” Ian, 39, said. “I think Tynan hit the longest home run in Banzhoff Stadium history. Over the house. Over the hills and far away.”
Banzhoff Stadium? That refers to Dave Banzhoff, who grew up with the gang. He’s the new cook, with a degree in culinary arts.
The surname, Flanagan? That brings to mind matriarch Cindy Flanagan, Concord’s queen of the dance studio.
Ian and Tynan? They owned those streets in the South End, shooting hoops, hitting long home runs, riding bikes, chasing each other and their friends, running, running, running.
They live in Bow now, but this is a Concord family, part of the streets and trees and history.
“There’s a lot of people in this neighborhood who want this in the area,” Tyler said. “I love this place, and you know, it’s right down the street from our home and we drive by it all the time.”
He continued: “We just happened to see Cimo in August. We were down at Eagle Square listening to music, the Club Soda Band.”
Cimo is John Cimikoski, who declined to comment but needs no introduction. He gives to charity and he’s really handsome, once beating out the likes of Mayor Jim Bouley and former all-star pitcher Bob Tewksbury to win the inaugural Mr. Concord Pageant four years ago. He half-jokingly asked the brothers if they wanted to buy his place.
“I just kind of didn’t think much about it,” Ian said. “We had thought of it and then we kind of went back to it.”
At which point Tynan added, “It was like, ‘We don’t know anything about this.’ What would we possibly do? We needed someone who had culinary skills.”
They hired Banzhoff, and now they’ll start their own era.
Before Cimo’s, there was Ordway’s, which was at the corner when Ian and Tynan were building their sandlot careers.
That reminded them of a driveway basketball game when they were in grade school, maybe 5 and 9. Former Monitor sports editor John Agee landed wrong, tore his Achilles tendon and, to my knowledge, never played basketball again. “I remember that,” Tynan said.
Tynan has a 7-month-old son, Ian, a 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old boy. They know nothing about running a combo convenience store/take-out restaurant, but their public relations skills , helped by the long home runs they once slugged, are fine, especially with the locals.
They laughed easily and recognized me immediately, from back in the day when I used to kick Agee’s butt in hoops.
They hired Banzhoff, who knows cooking. He graduated with a four-year degree from the Davis Culinary School at Southern New Hampshire University. He said he cooked at the Ritz, the Hilton and the Mount Washington Hotel. He’s thinking Flanagans’ Southender Deli and Market will offer more entree-type foods for grab-and-go. He’s thinking of barbecuing, and “maybe we can get some seafood; we’re in New Hampshire and everyone loves haddock and shrimp. The deli will be our main focus.”
It won’t be the focus for the kids who come into the store after a slugfest out on Iron Works Road, sweating, tired, thirsty. The Flanagan boys went all the time. They spent freely for a while, too.
“They had those charge card accounts,” Tynan said, “and at the end of the week, dad would be like, ‘What the heck is this?’”
“We had a tab,” added Ian, “and he’d ask, ‘How in the world did you spend $70 on penny candy?’ ”
Ordway’s was their sandlot headquarters, and they mentioned a man named George, another previous owner. They said their accountant, Adam Davidson, grew up in the neighborhood as well. They said they wanted to keep a tradition alive, a tradition that means a lot to kids in the summertime.
“We didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands,” Ian said.
They realize they have big shoes to fill. Cimikoski, the Flangans said, worked 14-hour days, and Tynan maintains that the former owner “hasn’t taken three days off in a row in 10 or 11 years. He’s playing golf today.”
The Flanagans want to open on June 15, even with the whirring of saws and drills inside the store recently, signaling there’s work to do.
And when it does open, you might hear about a home run crushed by a grade-school kid at Banzhoff Stadium many years ago.
“I really think it was the longest ever,” Ian said.
Said Tynan, “There’s probably still a divot in the ground.”