GORE BAY – Some businesses just can’t seem to catch a break this summer season, but an early morning fire at The Codmothers’ restaurant in Gore Bay, while it produced a lot of smoke damage, resulted in very little fire damage and no injuries.
The call came in around 11:46 pm on July 4, noted Gore Bay fire chief Mike Addison. “We evacuated the tenants upstairs and the team quickly located the source,” he said. The material producing the smoke was removed outdoors. “There was lots of smoke damage, but no fire damage,” he said. “I imagine they will have a lot of cleaning up to do.”
“We can’t even get started until the insurance guy arrives,” said owner Judith Martin. “It’s pretty disheartening. Yesterday we had our best day ever and now this.”
It was following an 11-hour shift yesterday in the midst of a heatwave that Ms. Martin got the news.
“I had been up and down those stairs I don’t know how many times,” she said. “Then I got the call.”
She might have been dog-tired, but she didn’t waste a moment.
“Those firefighters were amazing,” she said, “but I didn’t want them to have to bust down the doors to get in there. I pulled up right behind them and said ‘here, I have a key’.”
The smoke was coming from the laundry.
“We had taken all of our dirty linens and aprons to the wash, got them all clean and nicely folded. I guess the heat from the dryer or something they just spontaneously combusted. It’s the only thing I can figure.”
Ms. Martin said that while the setback to her restaurant was upsetting, she was just very relieved that her two tenants were okay. “I’m just so grateful everyone is alright, in fact, you can’t even smell anything up in their places,” she said. “Things could have been so much worse. You have to recognize the real blessings.”
Ms. Martin said that she hopes to have the popular restaurant back up and running as soon as possible, but a target date was unclear as of press time Monday.
“Right now, I have to sit and wait for the insurance guy to come, it’s very frustrating,” she said. “In the meantime, thank you to all our loyal customers and just know that we will be back in business as soon as we get the okay.”
