Rising up out of the ashes
By JENNIFER KELLEY
Cherry Hill Sun
9/11/2007

Chili’s, Porterhouse will reopen, but the devastation wrought by March fire brings some changes as well

The careless flick of a cigarette in early March resulted in the smoking ruins of two popular restaurants along Route 70 – Chili’s and Porterhouse Steaks & Seafood. While the entire property has been leveled down to the dirt, the township has approved site plans for the eateries’ redevelopment, and patrons could be sliding into a booth at either one by early next year, officials told The Sun.

The new Chili’s and Porterhouse restaurants will be very similar to the old designs from the outside, and more modern than their predecessors on the inside, said James FitzPatrick, vice president and chief development officer for Quality Dining Inc., the company that owns the site.

He noted that reconstruction could begin within the month, with the Chili’s ready to open by late January and the Porterhouse restaurant about 90 days behind.

“We know this location was special to Quality Dining because it housed one of their best performing eateries in their 173-restaurant stable,” said Mayor Bernie Platt. “They had an exceptional reputation not only in Cherry Hill, but throughout the region. This corporation has also been a model partner for the township’s business community by not laying off any of its workforce from the two restaurants and by aggressively seeking to rebuild their investment in our township.”

Quality Dining placed employees from both eateries at the company’s other nearby franchises soon after the blaze and, in addition to bringing back as many of them as possible, it also plans to hire between 100 and 125 new employees from the area, company officials said.

According to Fitzpatrick, “There was never any doubt in our mind that we’d reopen the restaurants in Cherry Hill. Not only did they do very well regionally, but the township has been extremely helpful and cooperative in helping us get things back on track after the fire.”

And what a fire it was.

The three-alarm blaze brought firefighters to the scene in the early morning hours of a brisk spring day, recalled Fire Chief Robert Giorgio. He said when the units arrived, the main fire was in the Chili’s portion of the attached facilities, and crews initially launched an interior attack.

As firefighters made their way into the smoking building, they saw flames curling up walls deep in the rear. But within moments, they realized the blaze was more developed than they thought, as it was also burning above the ceiling tiles – not a good position for firefighters to be in, Giorgio said.

Meanwhile, outside, crew members noticed the smoking roof – indicating an imminent collapse – and radioed the men inside to immediately retreat. But the signal did not go through. They soon ran to the front of the building and motioned the men out of the deteriorating structure just five minutes before its ceiling crashed to the floor.

It then became a defensive operation, Giorgio said, with the units preparing for an extended fight.

The two restaurants were built before more recently mandated fire codes, which call for sprinkler systems and smoke alarms – neither had either. In fact, between the buildings’ mixed construction, thick wood paneling and heavy equipment stored above the ceiling tiles, conditions were such that within 12 hours, a mountain of soggy, charred wood and twisted steel were all that remained on the site. While a fire-separation wall divided the two buildings, “fire-separation does not mean fireproof,” Giorgio explained. “The wall can hold back a fire for a period of time, but it’ll get through if it burns long enough.”

He noted that had both buildings been slightly larger, a sprinkler and smoke-alarm system would have been required. While the new buildings will be about the same size as the old ones, they’ll be built to reflect the township’s latest fire codes, which require both measures.

FitzPatrick and Giorgio told The Sun they were relieved that the blaze only destroyed buildings, not lives.

“That fire started slowly, but once it got inside and ignited Chili’s wood paneling, it developed quite rapidly, moving right across the ceiling unchecked,” Giorgio said.

The catastrophe has served to shine a spotlight on the new dangers that anti-smoking laws trigger –namely, that smokers don’t always have an ashtray handy outside, and most landscaping is not fireproof.

The Cherry Hill Fire Department has targeted both threats - first, by holding a seminar for business owners on the need for laying down fire-resistant mulch and other landscaping materials and, second, by pushing forward a township ordinance that would require mandatory smoking receptacles around area businesses.

“New laws have pushed smokers outside, and if they’re not careful, courteous and attentive as to where they dispose of their cigarettes, incidents like this are bound to occur,” Giorgio said, noting that small fires had ignited outside Chili’s takeout door prior to March’s devastating inferno.

Such repeated incidences have also resulted in the fire department instituting a new tracking system for local fires that details their causes, so that dangerous patterns can be ascertained in advance.

Fitzpatrick noted that he and his colleagues are excited to move forward with reconstruction efforts – which will result in safer facilities, company officials said – with the full backing of the municipal government.

“Over the years, the township has built a positive relationship with Quality Dining Inc. and their representatives that operated the Chili’s and Porterhouse restaurants (at Route 70 and Haddonfield Road),” Platt said. “I’m happy to see this organization go above and beyond to resurrect their business from the ashes of a blazing fire.”