‘Onwards and upwards’ as restaurant reopens

A party was held at the Lefebvre Street craft bar and kitchen on Wednesday evening for friends and regular customers to mark the end of three months’ hard work replacing the smoke-damaged interior after a second fire in two months hit the building.

Steve Hopkins and Sarah Boyd purchased the premises, previously Boom Boom, 15 months ago.

By introducing a modern interior and menus, they had begun to build a successful business when the disaster struck.

‘It has been a very unfortunate setback, we had just had the pizza oven fire and then this happened,’ said Mr Hopkins.

In March, staff had an initial scare when the pizza oven in the restaurant caught fire, but with the damage being minimal they were able to open that evening.

On 18 April, the couple came on site for an interview when they smelled smoke once again and called the emergency services.

‘We didn’t see any flames, but the fire service said there were flames when they got onto the scene.

‘Forensic investigators came over from the UK and found that the kitchen cloths had combusted,’ he said.

A little known danger in commercial kitchens, ordinary tea towels in frequent contact with cooking oil, when tumble dried and piled up, can spontaneously ignite.

‘I’ve worked in catering for a long time and so have the chefs and no one had heard of this before,’ said Mr Hopkins.

A recent tea towel combustion fire at a restaurant in Nottingham caused £25,000-worth of damage.

Mr Hopkins said with stock having to be thrown out and the building and fittings specially cleaned, it was a ‘24-hour a day’ job to get the building back to normal.

‘We were crying that first morning,’ said Miss Boyd.

‘We had just celebrated our first birthday and getting off the ground, it was always full at breakfast time and we were building up an after-work trade as well,’ said Mr Hopkins.

Fat Rascal serves breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner and has new longer opening hours. It originally grew in popularity as a breakfast spot when it introduced a signature avocado on toast dish and for dinner with a casual menu and extensive wine list.

Despite fierce competition in the hospitality industry on the island, Mr Hopkins said the other restaurateurs have been a great support.

‘Red, OGH, La Reunion... many others, even those out on the west coast, they’ve all been really supportive of us because they know what it’s like,’ he said.

Looking forward, the couple say they will forge ahead with plans for gin tasting nights and other special events and say their enthusiasm for running a restaurant has not been hampered.

‘We do it because we are good at it, we’re good at looking after people. It’s hard working weekends and evenings but we still love it. It’s onwards and upwards. Along with the chefs and front of house team, we are passionate, hard-working people who enjoy what we do and that makes it easier,’ he said.

n Fat Rascal is now open six days a week, excluding Mondays.

n Read more from Fat Rascal in an upcoming feature.