A long time Savannah favorite restaurant, Crystal Beer Parlor, was damaged by a fire early Friday morning. It will likely be closed for a number of days. That’s the bad news.

The good news is, the fire was largely contained to an area where dirty linens are kept before they are picked up by a cleaning service. There was no structural damage to the restaurant’s main building. The linen closet does sit adjacent to the restaurant’s walk in cooler where food is stored. That cooler appears to have suffered a good bit of damage and will likely be replaced along with all of the food that was inside.

“We are very fortunate” CBP Owner John Nichols told me Friday morning. “It could have been much worse.” He tells me there was no damage whatsoever to the interior of the building either.

Of course, it is in moments like these where everyone puts on their Fire Marshall’s hat in an effort to speculate on a cause. The first thing anyone will assume-because the restaurant was closed-is that something electrical sparked the fire. Nicholas dismissed that fairly confidently.

“There is no electricity in that closet. At all.” He said.

Of course, the walk in cooler right next it does have power running through it, but anyone will tell you that we are getting way wayyyy ahead of ourselves. At some point, a cause will be determined and the rebuild on this corner section of the Crystal Beer Parlor’s footprint will begin.

In the short term, John will be the first to tell you there are far more pressing issues to tend to. Conversations have already begun on how to file unemployment claims for staff that will likely go a few days without wages. Insurance agents had yet to arrive on the scene, but were on their way.

Crystal Beer Parlor will obviously be closed for a few days. How many is anyone’s guess right now. A temporary walk-in cooler to store their food is going to ordered today. It will take some time to inventory and re-order food to fill it and get back up and running. The Fire Department is going to have to, at some point, give the all clear. All of this, obviously, takes time.

John tells me they are always closed on Thanksgiving Day, which is good. The guess is that it is going to take the better part of the next week to put all of the pieces back together again before the Crystal Beer Parlor will re-open for business.

Of course, you can follow them on Facebook, they are very active there for updates on their return. Of course, we will keep you posted as well.

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