A structural fire last Wednesday at Cucina Paradiso, 814 North Blvd., will put the restaurant out of business for about two months, its owners say.
Nick Gambino, who owns Cucina with his brother Anthony, said he had no idea how much damage the fire caused.
“We haven’t even gotten that far,” he said Monday. “We’ll probably know within the next week or so.”
Insurance investigators agreed with the Oak Park Fire Department’s conclusion that what started the fire might never be known.
“What caused the fire to start, we can’t determine,” Fire Chief William Bell said last week. Both the local and insurance investigators are listing the fire’s source as “undetermined,” Bell said.
Investigators agree the fire that damaged the restaurant’s kitchen area started outside the restaurant in an alcove surrounding the kitchen door, Bell said.
The wood ceiling of the alcove burned, giving the fire access to the restaurant.
“We believe it burned up and through the wood and then spread,” Bell said.
On Wednesday, Oak Park called in a state K9 investigation unit to search for accelerant residue, but Bell said none was found.
The fire started Wednesday about 2 a.m. All Oak Park units responded to the blaze, as did some units from neighboring communities, said Deputy Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis.
The restaurant was unoccupied when firefighters arrived, but they evacuated residents of apartments above the restaurant.
Firefighters were able to contain the blaze to its area of origin and control it within approximately one hour, Puknaitis said.
“For a fire of that size, I think we were very fortunate to get it under control within the hour,” he said.
Firefighters broke the restaurant’s large front windows to vent the space.
The blaze made the rear portion of the roof structurally unstable, but supports had been shored up by Monday so the owners could begin pulling kitchen equipment out of the building.
Although fire damage was contained to the kitchen area, smoke and water damage spread throughout much of the dining room, the owners said.
The restaurant building is owned by John Toomey, who also owns the building to the west, home to his John Toomey Gallery. The gallery building was untouched by the fire, Lucy Toomey said.
The Gambinos said they are insured for all costs related to the fire. While waiting for the space to be rebuilt, the restaurant will focus on its catering business, 2MayToz, and keep as many of its 30 employees busy there, Anthony Gambino said.
2MayToz will operate temporarily out of 19th Century Club, 178 Forest Ave., and Jim August, of Cafe Le Coq, 734 Lake St., offered the use of his kitchen, Gambino said.
“Everybody has been so supportive,” Nick Gambino said. “It’s been overwhelming.”
Though financially protected, the Gambinos said the emotional impact of the fire hit hard.
“It’s our home,” Nick Gambino said. “We spend more time here than we do at our own homes.”
“You feel extremely violated and you feel extremely nervous,” Anthony Gambino said. “I’m speechless. And I’m usually not speechless. It’s our livelihood.”
The owners said they’ve built a dedicated clientele over the dozen years they’ve been open. Those customers’ support helped them get through the difficult morning.
“We were really emotionally touched by the number of customers who came by this morning,” Anthony Gambino said. “I really was kinda blown away.”
Last weekend, WLS-TV Ch. 7, the Chicago ABC affiliate, corrected its initial online story that called the Cucina Paradiso fire “suspicious,” and claimed “investigators believe it was intentionally set.”
“That report came in [Wednesday morning] before our investigators came in,” Oak Park Fire Chief William Bell said. “They didn’t talk to any of our investigators.”
The report claimed that police considered the fire suspicious.
“That is incorrect,” Police Chief Rick Tanksley.
The un-bylined brief, dated June 19 (one day before the fire), also claimed that “the fire quickly raced through the business,” which is at odds with the Oak Park Fire Department’s account, that the fire was contained to the kitchen area. Indeed, at midday Wednesday the dining room was clean, with white table linens and overturned glasses awaiting the next day’s lunch crowd. The dining area was free from any soot or obvious signs of fire damage.
ABC7’s report further claimed that the art gallery next door, the John Toomey Gallery, 818 North Blvd., was damaged. That also is untrue, according to Lucy Toomey. The Toomeys own both buildings.
ABC7 representatives declined to speak on the record.
The brief was updated on Friday to reflect the correct date and was updated over the weekend to remove the suspicion claims. The report still claims the fire “raced through the business” and that smoke damaged the gallery.
-Drew Carter