FLINT, Mich. (AP) - Atlas Coney Island was a place you could usually find more than homemade food and original Flint-style coneys.
It was where you could find friendship and were treated like family. It’s where Jimmy and David Todorovsky chose to plant their family’s roots.
“Both of them have big hearts and are true to heart,” said David’s daughter, Anastasia Pirkovic. “They are so compassionate for what they do, and they treat people like family … They were giving people and warm, and never snooty, like, ’Oh, because I’m a business man I’m going to have my nose up in the air,’ no. They were never like that. They were never into fancy-shmancy gold and diamonds and stuff like that. They were normal, down-to-earth people that respected everyone.”
Jimmy, 82, and David, 84, sat in their favorite red booth Tuesday, March 21, speaking softly to each other in Macedonian, their first language, as they finished one of their last shifts at the Corunna Road restaurant.
They bought the restaurant in 1980, but have worked together since 1953.
Every few minutes, their conversation was interrupted by a visitor - a former employee or a longtime customer turned family friend - who stopped to chat and snap a photo with the brothers. Each person was greeted by name and with a smile.
Katharine Wright stopped by Tuesday to see the brothers because her mother, Myra, couldn’t make it in. Myra Wright worked as a waitress at Atlas for 29 years - even before the brothers bought the place. She retired in 2010.
“My mother thinks of these two as like her brothers,” Wright said.
Jimmy agreed.
“They were like family, like right away,” Wright said. “My parents have both been sick the past few years, and when I’d go to the hospital, afterward I’d stop in here to give Jimmy and David the update. Jimmy would send home rice pudding, and David would make sure my mother got an omelet.”
Of course, the brothers remember Myra well. But, they also remember dozens of other people who wished them farewell in person and on Facebook after the restaurant announced their retirement.
Atlas responded to many commenters - most just offering well wishes - with specific memories and dates placing people in the business at a certain time and with certain people.
On one woman’s comment, Atlas responded, “Jackie, you worked with Jimmy and David at the Ritz just out of high school, I think. And then at Atlas also! You go way back with them. Back with Truly, Clara, and Joe at the Ritz.”
It doesn’t surprise Wava Valliere, who was promptly told, “I know,” when she re-introduced herself to the brothers Tuesday as “Freddy’s sister.”
“I know you do. I was just making sure. (David) never forgets. He never forgets a thing,” Valliere said.
Valliere stopped in Tuesday to say goodbye to the brothers. The brothers met her and her family in 1957 and grew closer with them through the years.
And that’s how it happened with everyone.
The Flint Journal (https://bit.ly/2o34V7T ) reports that born in Greece, the brothers spent childhood in Europe. They fled to Macedonia during World War II before their father brought them to Flint in 1953.
Their father opened and operated Central Luncheon on South Saginaw Street in downtown Flint. Then, they bought the Ritz Drive Inn on Hemphill and South Saginaw streets where they started selling coneys to General Motors employees.
And if you ask their family, there’s no question it was the original coney.
“The coney was designed for these people at General Motors … They worked so many hours at the plant because production was seven days a week and there was no time to eat,” Pirkovic said. “The coney was designed to be hot, nutritious and filling. That’s how the coney came about … We are the original. I don’t care what anybody says. It started here with the Macedonians way back.”
The dynamic of Flint’s economy changed over the years, and Atlas went through some changes - it eventually had to specify that its coneys were “Flint-style” as the customer base shifted from GM workers to many out-of-towners.
“You gotta do what you gotta do to survive,” Pirkovic said, laughing.
The brothers saw many more changes in their business and in the Flint area over the years, too.
In 1967, they opened the Ritz Lounge & Steak House on South Saginaw Street in Burton.
Then, in 1980, they bought Atlas.
There, they’ve tag-teamed the days so at least one of them was always at the restaurant.
One would come in at 5 a.m. and work for 12 hours before the other came in to relieve him.
“It was tough working with family sometimes, but they each had their duties. And after all those years, they learned each other’s habits,” Pirkovic said.
Now, they not only finish each other’s sentences, but they sometimes say the same things at the same time.
Looking forward to relaxing after decades of 12-hour shifts, the brothers say - simultaneously - that there is one thing they will miss: the customers.
“We’re kind of exhausted. Kind of sad in a way. But we’ll be glad when it’s over,” David said.
It hasn’t fully hit them that they won’t be at the restaurant every day, Pirkovic said, but she’s confident the friendships they created will still remain.
“I have a food service business and he’ll come into my establishment, and he knows everybody. He’ll go table to table talking to people. Wherever he goes, he knows somebody, and he always remembers their name,” she said, laughing.
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Information from: The Flint Journal, https://www.mlive.com/flint
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