A Bridgton couple says they’re not going to let a June 3 fire derail their plans of opening a restaurant.
After purchasing a seasonal home in Bridgton 11 years ago, moving permanently to town in January, renovating a 115-year-old red barn on Depot Street and hiring an 18-person staff, well-known Massachusetts restaurateurs Jimmy Burke and Joanie Wilson were planning to open their Italian restaurant, Vivo, sometime between June 17 and 24.
They had sold their restaurant in Scituate, Mass., in September, and invested more than $500,000 into the 18A Depot St. building. The wine list and menus were complete on Thursday, June 4, when they placed several staining rags on a piece of cardboard a couple feet from the deck.
At 7 the next morning, Chuck Renneker, the man who sold Burke and Wilson the building, woke them up. The rags had combusted and Vivo had caught fire. At 6:02 a.m., contractors working on a Depot Street revitalization effort had smelled smoke, notified the Bridgton Fire Department, and attempted to fight the blaze with fire extinguishers. The couple arrived shortly after the volunteer department had contained the blaze.
“They were still putting water on it,” Burke said. “It was like a dream – weird, very strange, just standing there looking at the building being destroyed.”
The fire department managed to put out the fire before it ignited nearby propane tanks and two adjacent buildings, Burke said.
“They saved both buildings next to us,” he said. “They could have gone like that. There were two propane tanks not 10 feet from our building that would have been a real disaster if they had caught.”
Carrye Castleman-Ross, the owner of the Depot Street Tap House, said her business barely avoided catching fire.
“I have a window on the side of my building that’s 23 feet from Vivo and the exterior pane cracked from the heat, but the inside one held,” she said. “The fire chief said if the inside one cracked it would have pulled the fire into the Tap House, which I just bought on May 12.”
According to Burke, the fire destroyed nearly everything in Vivo, except the floor. Their builder’s property insurance policy will compensate them a maximum of $350,000 for the loss, since it does not cover “contents,” such as kitchen equipment, Burke said.
“We’re going to end up being short over $150,000,” he said.
According to Castleman-Ross, the contractors renovating the building lost all their equipment, as well.
“They lost all their tools,” she said. “They were the ones that were really lovingly finishing this 115-year-old barn and they were three working days from being finished. They are also devastated.”
As a benefit for the couple, on Saturday, June 27, community organizations including the Rotary Club, the Lions Club, and the Greater Bridgton Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, will hold a “Bridgton Strong” fundraiser, with live music, food, and raffles, at the Bridgton Community Center on Depot Street. The event will be followed by a party celebrating the fire department in July, according to Castleman-Ross.
Mody Botros, the owner of About Time Graphics and an organizer of the event, said “Bridgton Strong” is a celebration of unity meant to “help put a smile on this couple’s faces and just give them that little push.”
“We’re neighbors and we see these guys working their butts off to get this restaurant going,” Botros said. “We’ve all been excited because everybody knows Jimmy is not a cook. Jimmy’s a chef. He competed for crying out loud with Bobby Flay. He’s a well-known chef, he’s not just a cook.”
Burke, who beat Flay in a Celebrity Chef Dine Around at the Mohegan Sun Casino in 2011 and has been described in press reports as a “legendary” Boston-area Italian chef, said he has been overwhelmed by the Bridgton community’s support.
“This community has rallied around Joanie and I as if we’ve been here for 30 years,” he said. “I’ve been brought to tears a few times by the kindness and the generosity and the offers. It’s been pretty amazing. I’ve never quite witnessed anything like it.”
The couple plans to rebuild Vivo as soon as possible. According to Burke, Wilson was drawing up new designs for the restaurant the day after the fire.
“As it was smoking, I just said, ‘You know, we have to rebuild this,’” Wilson said. “We can’t let our dream go up in smoke. We’ve been planning on doing this for a long time. It’s going to be our last restaurant.”
With the fire-damaged exterior of their restaurant in the background, owners Jimmy Burke and Joanie Wilson, who moved to Bridgton permanently in January to start an Italian eatery on Depot Street, pledge to rebuild.Staff photo by Ezra Silk
Husband and wife Jimmy Burke and Joanie Wilson look at the remains of their Italian restaurant, Vivo. Staff photo by Ezra Silk
Bridgton firefighters combat the blaze on 18 Depot St. on the morning of June 5. Photo courtesy of Mody Botros
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