What sparked Sunday's fire at The Farmhouse restaurant is still unknown, but the owner says it's a waiting game to see when they can reopen.
Barrie firefighters responded to the call around 3 p.m., Sunday, for a blaze in the basement of the historic Bradford Street building.
Acting Chief Fire Prevention Officer Samantha Hoffmann told BarrieToday the restaurant was empty when crews arrived due to a working fire alarm, but that other information was still unknown at this time.
“The good news is that the fire was contained to one room. The fire-alarm system functioned as designed and the fire was put out before any serious spread,” she said.
“We don’t have a dollar estimate (on damages) because the fire occurred in the electrical room and it is unknown how much damage was done to the electrical system," Hoffmann added, "but (the Electrical Safety Authority) has been contacted."
Farmhouse owner Randy Feltis told BarrieToday that the building wasn't badly damaged and the hold-up for reopening is more related to insurance.
“The fire happened in the basement and under the fuse panel, so we have to check the wiring and all that,” Feltis said. “Structurally, it's fine, but we could be looking at a couple of weeks, a month being a worse-case scenario, of being closed.”
Feltis said they had to turn off all the power in the building and that meant a lot of food was spoiled, but he was happy everyone was OK and there were no injuries.
“We had about 70 people dining that we had to evacuate, so no injuries to them or staff is the good part of this whole thing,” he said.
