A fire that started late Sunday night in downtown Kingston has left a restaurant gutted while damaging the building next door.
While there was plenty of property damage, no one was injured in the fire, Kingston Fire & Rescue says.
According to a news release issued by the Downtown Kingston Business Improvement Area, the fire started at 354 King St. E., which houses The Shuroop Sushi Bar and Ramen House. The fire spread through the basement, main floor and second floor.
The fire then spread to the building next door, which is home to A-One Clothing on the bottom floor and apartments above. All of the building’s residents were alerted and evacuated safely.
The cause of the fire, which took about eight hours to extinguish because of the historic nature of the building, is under investigation.
Fire crews remained on site midday Monday.
Sitting in a coffee shop kitty corner to the scene of the fire was The Shuroop’s owners, Panos Dimitroulopoulos and wife Som, the restaurant’s chef. They were waiting to be let in to see the damage the fire wrought.
“For us, the whole building is gone. They told us the roof is 80 per cent down. The ceiling between the two floors, because of the water, it’s caved in. So that means internally, it’s probably totally destroyed,” Dimitroulopoulos said.
The couple took over the King Street restaurant two years ago, when their son started university in Kingston.
“We invested everything, all my savings, to buy the restaurant,” Dimitroulopoulos said.
The couple was asleep when they received the phone call every business owner dreads.
“We were in a panic. I woke up my wife, we got into the car and drove down and, you know, there’s nothing left,” Dimitroulopoulos said.
The couple had closed the restaurant around 9:30 last night, he said. While firefighters initially thought the fire began in the restaurant’s basement, they told them it might have instead started in the kitchen.
“We’re very meticulous with closing down the restaurant,” Dimitroulopoulos said. “Everything was off. All the burners were off. The gas main was off. All the lights were off. The only thing that stays on is the heating.”
It is an old building, he said, and they’ve had electrical issues in the past.
Dimitroulopoulos said they were looking forward to finally taking a few days for themselves over the holiday break.
“We just needed some rest, because we worked every day for the past two years,” he said. “Last year we basically repainted the restaurant ourselves. So the five days we took off, basically we spent them in there, renovating the place.”
They are insured, he said, and they plan to reopen a restaurant, but probably in a different location.
Next month would have been their two-year anniversary of owning The Shuroop.
“We spent the first year trying to rebuild the reputation of the restaurant,” he said.
“And this year we were seeing a difference Things were getting better. People kept coming back. They loved our food. And suddenly this happens.”
Standing across the street from his store, A-One Clothing owner Michael Tenenhouse watched the fire crews work, awaiting his chance to go inside and see for himself the extent of the damage.
“There’s water damage, smoke damage. It is what it is, right?” Tenenhouse offered with a shrug of his shoulders.
With Christmas just a few days away, it’s a particularly busy time of year for the downtown retailer, he said.
“The next two weeks, for our business, is huge,” Stoness said.
A-One Clothing has been located at the corner of Princess and King streets since 1938, and will continue to be there for the foreseeable future, Tenenhouse assured.
“We’re gonna rebuild and come back stronger and bigger and better,” he said. “That’s our plan.”
Some of the nearby businesses closed Monday after experiencing smoke damage.
Chez Piggy restaurant, located in the Rochleau Court laneway behind those King Street buildings, announced late Monday morning that it would be closed until further notice.
“Here at The Pig, we are safe, though we did experience significant smoke and will need time to properly clean and assess the space,” read the restaurant’s social media post.