By Mike Pound
Globe columnist
WEIR, Kan. — The old grocery store is temporarily closed, so the shelves were barer than I remembered them. But other than that, on Tuesday morning it looked pretty much like it did when I used to stop in more than 20 years ago.
Of course, I don’t recall Jack and Steve Simone renting DVDs back then, but they might have. No, what I remember about Simone’s Market in Weir was the meat: the smoked bacon, the sausage and the deli sandwiches.
I didn’t stop in at Simone’s that often in those days. Usually it was one of those Saturdays when I was tooling around the back roads between KOAM-TV, where I worked, and Parsons, where I lived. Things were simpler back then. Or at least they seemed to be. Back then, I was content, every now and then, to spend a Saturday afternoon driving the back roads with — as Chuck Berry would say — no particular place to go.
On some of those Saturday afternoons, I would end up in Weir. And when you’re in Weir, you pretty much had to stop in at Simone’s, even if you didn’t need to get anything. Once you walked into the store and wandered back to the meat counter, you would figure that you might need a sandwich for the road, or some bacon or sausage for breakfast on Sunday.
People have been stopping in at Simone’s Market in Weir for 68 years now. There are many folks in Southeast Kansas who can’t imagine a trip to Weir without Simone’s. But a couple of weeks ago, it sounded as if those Simone’s stops had come to an end. The word came in the form of a small newspaper advertisement. The ad for Simone’s said the market would close at the end of the month. In the ad, Jack and Steve thanked their customers for “68 wonderful years of business.”
And just like that, a local legend was gone. Or so people thought. It turns out that Simone’s won’t be gone. Sure, Jack and Steve still plan on retiring. And sure, they plan on kicking back for a few months. Jack says he’s going to Las Vegas soon. Steve says he’s going to visit his grandkids. But they think they are leaving their store in good hands. Jack and Steve are selling the market to Mike and Kathy Rakestraw.
The important thing to note is that Jack and Steve aren’t just selling their market to Mike and Kathy. They also are sending along more than 80 years of combined experience with the deal. They are sending along some closely guarded recipes. They are sending along a loyal employee, meat cutter Dustin Guyman, who was trained by Jack. And they are sending along 68 years of service to Southeast Kansas.
Mike used to work for Jack and Steve in the early ’80s while he was in college. He knows how the Simone brothers operate. He knows how they treat their customers, and he knows enough about the business not to mess with a good thing.
“We’re keeping everything the same,” Mike said. “The same name. The same recipes. Even the same phone number.”
Mike said that if everything goes according to plan, he hopes to reopen the store by the end of the month. But he stressed that’s not written in stone. The last thing Mike and Kathy want to do is open before they’re ready. They do have a reputation to uphold, you know.
Jack and Steve are confident that the Rakestraws will do fine.
“They’re (Mike and Kathy) good people,” Steve said. “We feel good leaving it (the market) in their hands.”
Jack and Steve’s father and grandfather opened Simone’s in 1940. When it opened, Simone’s was a pretty typical small-town grocery store, serving not only folks from Weir but from all over Cherokee County. In 1963, the market moved to its current location, and Jack and Steve assumed a more prominent role in the business. About that same time, Jack said, he and his brother looked around and decided they needed to add on to the business.
“Dad and grandpa always made a little sausage, but we decided in the late ’60s that we needed a niche,” Jack said. “That’s when we started making the sausage and the bacon.”
Before long, Simone’s was THE place to buy meat in Southeast Kansas and beyond. It wasn’t uncommon for folks to drive for miles just to get a couple of pounds of Simone’s bacon or a smoked turkey or a bag full of deli sandwiches.
But, after more than 40 years, Jack and Steve are ready to slow down and let someone else carry on the Simone’s tradition. Of course, walking away won’t be easy. You don’t do something for 40 years if you don’t love what you do.
“We used to have a portrait of Dad that we hung up front,” Jack said. “I was looking at it a while back, just looking at Dad, and it hit me. All the memories and the people. It’s bittersweet.”
