The fire prompted evacuations around Leetsdale Drive and South Forest Street, impacting businesses like Inga’s Alpine Tavern.
DENVER — The five-alarm fire that started in an apartment building on Friday continued to keep the firefighters busy on Sunday.
Denver Fire responded to the site of a 283-unit development around 7 p.m. Friday night. The flames prompted evacuations around Leetsdale Drive and South Forest Street, impacting businesses like Inga’s Alpine Tavern.
“The staff that was here sort of knew something was going on because of the sounds and they went out into the parking lot and saw the flames,” said Tony McNabb, co-owner. “Shortly thereafter, the police came over and said, ‘You guys got to evacuate.'”
McNabb said he wasn’t at the restaurant at the time the fire broke out, but lives nearby. He said he stayed home to keep out of the way of first responders.
“It was sort of intense ’cause it was a lot of chaos in the neighborhood with firetrucks and people driving through, people[‘s] curiosity, so it was pretty busy,” McNabb said.
He said the first call he made was to his landlord to let him know what was going on. He said he was worried for his business, but trusted firefighters to stop the fire from spreading.
“They were spraying down Sherwin Williams to protect that building so I assumed if it moved more west, they would have tried to do the same for us,” McNabb said. “You know, Sherwin Williams being a paint store, that could have been a big kaboom if it got there, but they protected it so we felt pretty good.”
McNabb said he navigated road closures to get into the restaurant on Saturday morning. He said he’s used to getting two to three deliveries, but only one could get through.
“Food deliveries are hard,” McNabb said. “I had a truck trying to get in yesterday and he couldn’t get down the street and finally they opened it up and he was like, ‘Can I drop off?,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah we still need the delivery.'”
McNabb said he offered relief to firefighters on duty since he couldn’t open to customers.
“You know, whatever you want,” McNabb said. “Water, soda, let us know. Come up. You know you guys are taking care of us, so we’ll help you out.”
He said he wasn’t able to open until Denver Police partially allowed traffic on Leetsdale Drive again.
“We’re able to do it, but it’s cash only,” McNabb said. “We can’t do credit cards because the systems down. So we can do Venmo or cash.”
McNabb said a few regulars came in, but he canceled his usual Saturday live entertainment and missed morning crowds. He said he can make thousands of dollars on Saturdays.
“It can be significant for a small place,” McNabb said. “If we have music, things going on, lot of college football going on, so it’s a busy time of year.”
He said he’s still waiting for his internet and phone lines to be restored, and roads around the restaurant to be fully reopened.
“No internet, no phone line, so people can’t even call in so we tried to use social media as much as we could to let people we know we were going to open once they allow traffic,” McNabb said.
He said opening for even a little potential business is worth opening, rather than miss a full day by closing.
“I really only have two staff people here so we’re not incurring a lot of costs so as long as we get some business and we offset it,” McNabb said.
McNabb said as evacuees are coming back into their homes, he wanted to keep the restaurant open in case people didn’t feel like cooking upon their returns.
“We want people to have a place to go to,” McNabb said.
He acknowledged the potential of new business with the apartment’s construction. However, he said he didn’t know who was set to occupy the building so any potential loss might not have been significant.
“You never know what kind of people are going to move in,” McNabb said. “But obviously, we have high hopes. You open a, I think they said, 285-unit building and it’s a lot of bodies. Lots of families, we do well with families. We’re kid-friendly, dog-friendly. So we were looking forward to it.”
McNabb said he hopes customers continue to come into the restaurant and he’ll soon be able to take all forms of payment again.
“We’ll have to wait and see, but we’ll be here,” McNabb said, with a laugh.
