I fired up (no pun intended) the computer this morning to be met with horrible WMUR headlines. Beanie’s is on fire. Think of when you (and everyone you know) learned that Notre Dame was on fire. Not only is Beanie’s a Loudon community pillar, but they deserve everyone’s support, whether we’re Loudon locals or not. Let us all stay tuned in the coming days to find out what each of us can do, depending on our own talents, skills, resources, spheres of influence, and the owners’ plans to do anything while awaiting reconstruction.
What I’d like to share with the readers is my personal Beanie’s story, as unexciting as it may be. I had never heard of them until an unknown number of months after the executive council arrests. Most people know by now that Nurse Terese, the most famous victim(possibly tied with Frank Staples), is a local. Prior to hearing Beanie’s mentioned by name, I knew there’s been a history of activism at the lights of Routes 106 & 129 abutting Beanie’s. The activism usually involved a nut job named Dennis Jakubowski and his fellow anti-Jose ilk. Terese sometimes posted videos of attempts to reason with such lost-at-sea people, kind of like the way Beth Scaer and her husband have, or the way David L’Heureux did outside Dartmouth’s mothership campus in Lebanon 5 years ago at this time. Beanie’s was not yet on my radar though they were right there in plain sight.
Terese and some locals started up a standing Saturday night gathering while encouraging people elsewhere in the state to do something similar in their own zip code. The objective was to round up like minded people in person for some community building and possibly support a like minded business. There was a dearth of such people and businesses in Nashua, the city I called home until moving to Epsom. I often considered joining the Saturday night Beanie’s group, but the miles on the odometer were always a deterrent. Sometimes I would start out the day with intentions of going, but then bad weather, heavy traffic or a variety of other things not going favorably would lead to me scrapping such plans.
In the summer of 2024, I was an active volunteer on Team Lily and an ardent supporter of Terese in her executive council primary. With Loudon Old Home Day on the calendar, I had premeditated plans to be there and that was the first time I saw Beanie’s in person. It was following Terese en route to the event from the Epsom parade earlier that morning. Trump and Terese and Jose had signs on the big split rail fence, but not Lily. It was my mission to change that. When we arrived, I asked Terese if Beanie’s had a tent on site and she said yes, but there was a long line of paying customers, so I decided to socialize with other Loudonites and try again later. Then Vikram arrived and it was game-on!
I would be darned if Vikram made contact with Beanie’s before me, so I hovered around their tent until a window of opportunity presented itself. The father(George) and son(Nasi) owners greeted me warmly and I unleashed my request. They asked a few quick questions vetting Lily’s worthiness and quickly said yes. Jose was just arriving as I high tailed it out of there to utilize their blessing. Meanwhile Vikram was busy schmoozing with enemy of 91 and Trump hater Moffett and my future opponent, Howard Pearl. I placed the Lily sign and then my thoughts of Beanie’s went dormant for several months.
When I moved to Epsom in February 2025, I learned that my new mailman lived in Loudon and called himself “The Singing Mailman.” Despite acquiring an inferior senator, I was happy to get a rep upgrade(from the Newmans to the McGuires) and trade in a Trump hater mailman for The Singing Mailman. One of my new neighbors is a retired mail carrier and spoke well of The Singing Mailman. She and her husband invited me to carpool with them to his gig at Beanie’s, which has been a regular venue in the rotation for his shows. I’ve also been there other times and sat with Selectman Marc Griffin and his wife, Amy, Trustee of the Trust Donna Laclair and her husband, Pat, all Beanie’s regulars.
In early May, Lily dusted off some signs salvaged from 2024 and said it was time to start placing them on private property. I quickly made my short list, which included Beanie’s a few other places in Loudon. I got George’s blessing on May 4, a whole month earlier than filing my candidacy for a primary against Howard Pearl. I had no Scott Brown signs at the moment, but it was my mission to later get his sign on that split rail fence, hopefully one of the larger ones.
On June 20, Scott tweeted a picture of himself with Alvin See and Jose in front of the racetrack(also in Loudon), and I asked if they stopped by Beanie’s. They hadn’t at that point, but I was like a dog on a bone in suggesting that someone get George’s blessing. Not long after that, someone made it happen, and a large Scott Brown sign joined the menagerie of signs for candidates worthy of votes. Here we are, just a little over a month later, when tragedy strikes.
A WMUR update said that Beanie’s will rebuild, but I don’t know if any adaptive measures will be taken in the meantime, like relocating or converting to a food truck. Maybe there will be a crowdfunding site. Maybe The Singing Mailman could do a fundraiser gig with Ms Meagan and The Singing Senator. They would do a knockout job singing Smooth Tennessee Whiskey, I know that much. Beanie’s deserves to rise up from the ashes. Please join me in hoping that it happens soon.
