Blue Canoe Will Return Despite Titusville Fire

| March 27, 2015

canoe-owners-1024x768TITUSVILLE, Pa. (EYT) – “There’s hope,” said Bill Zimmer, one of the Blue Canoe Brewery and Restaurant owners on Monday afternoon, as he surveyed the damage to his business after last week’s Town Square fire.  

“When I saw the fire I thought, ‘no way, we’re done,’ but that’s not the case.”

Crews from dozens of area fire departments responded to the fire on March 18.  Titusville fire officials said the fire was raging in the back half of one of the 112 W. Spring St. building’s two second-floor apartments when crews arrived on scene.

One week later others looked with hope and many volunteers arrived Tuesday morning to help clean and remove equipment and furnishings from the Blue Canoe.

“We will have been opened for seven years in August, and I want to be back open long before that,” said Zimmer.  “It’s bad, but we can come back from it.  It looks bad but it’s not insurmountable. We’ll be able to recover as long as they don’t condemn the building, which I don’t think they will.  They don’t build them like this any more.  It’s still structurally sound from what I’ve been told, but I haven’t gotten the final word.”

mechanical chase          

The brunt of the damage to Blue Canoe was in the kitchen because of the collapse of a mechanical chase, a hollow section of wall (or floor or ceiling) thru which mechanical ductwork or other building systems are run.  When the roof collapsed, it hit part of the roof of the walk-in cooler and firemen had to make a cut into the walk-in. (Zimmer in the chase area.)

An insurance adjustor and building inspector toured the building on Monday.

“None of the brewing equipment is severely damaged; it’s dirty and just needs to be cleaned up,” said Zimmer. 

“The worst thing was the water.  I was in here Thursday at 3 a.m. and it was like it was raining inside. The water was flowing down from upstairs.  The basement was up thigh deep.  We haven’t plugged in all of the equipment, yet, so we don’t know what’s going to work.  The brewing equipment is basically undamaged.  Our chiller…We have beer in our tanks that is fine.  We have a line on a generator to getting our chiller running.”

Blue Canoe rents its space from the Titusville Redevelopment Authority. 

“Executive Director Jim Becker’s number one priority is to get a roof on the building,” said Zimmer.  “We just got permission today (Monday) to come in and start cleaning. We have a huge crew coming in tomorrow and get everything out of here, take it to storage.  Either the insurance company cleaning crews will come in or we will do it, whichever is faster.  They have to review the building and see if everything is up to code and when they can let people back into the building.”

Blue Canoe has 27 employees in addition to the three owners, Bill and Charlene Zimmer Jeremy Potocki, all of them suddenly unemployed.

While they can’t yet come up with a cost estimate of the damage because of uncertainty over what needs to be done and what can be used, Charlene Zimmer said their insurance doesn’t cover everything, and there was no business interruption insurance.

“It doesn’t cover everything,” said Charlene, “Like any out-of-pocket costs, food for volunteers, or immediate unemployment insurance.  We’re trying to give them some sort of money back because it’s going to be at least two weeks before they can even start to receive benefits, and most people that work here are servers, bartenders, and primarily all of their money comes from cash and working here.  As of Wednesday, it will be a full week since people worked here.”

Charlene said that some support for its employees could also come from the numerous volunteer contributions that have been collected after the fire.  After six days of fundraising, a GoFundMe campaign has raised $9,835 from 154 people.  Fellow brewers have also helped.

“The brewing community has been great,” said Zimmer. “All of the local breweries have started a little bucket drive spirited by Chris Sirianni of BrewErie.  They just wanted to help out.  We’re like a little fraternity.  We’re in competition, but we consider it’s more us against the big guys like Budweiser and Coors.  We’ve always helped each other out.”

A reopening date has not been confirmed, but the Blue Canoe owners feel they are creative people, and they will find a way as soon as possible.

“This is our livelihood, and we’re all unemployed right now,” said Zimmer.  “We’ll do what we can, and we are creative. My liquor license is still good, and I have beer in the basement.  I just need power and cleanup.  I have the staff and everybody is willing to work.  The CO2 system still works, and if need be, we’ll barbecue outside on roasters.”


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