Suzanne Rozdeba Nick Alija, manager of Cucina Di Pesce, says that the perception by some neighborhood residents that the restaurant shut down after a fire earlier this month has cut business by about 40 percent. Below: Mr. Alija with a few patrons at the half-empty restaurant Tuesday night.

It was 9 p.m. on Tuesday night, and Nick Alija looked out at the half-empty dining room at Cucina Di Pesce and shook his head. Five tables were occupied, surrounded by space heaters pumping out warmth into the restaurant, which was damaged by a Jan. 4 fire that roared through the building next door.

Mr. Alija, a manager at the restaurant, knows that the damage could have been far worse. The East Village Farm & Grocery, where the fire started, was gutted. While Cucina was spared that fate – and has been able to remain open despite needing thousands of dollars in repairs – it has found itself stuck in a kind of commercial limbo: it is open for business but many people think it has shut down.

“I’ve heard people standing outside the restaurant saying we’re closed down, and have seen people online writing the same – and it’s not true,” Mr. Alija, 31, told The Local. “I’ve been telling people we are definitely open. It’s been a nightmare.”
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Suzanne Rozdeba Pratik Shah, owner of the East Village Farm & Grocery, stands in front of what remains of the store after it was devastated by a fire Tuesday morning. Below: Mr. Shah greets a well-wisher outside the store.

When Pratik Shah’s family opened East Village Farm & Grocery 20 years ago, he was 14 years old. He quickly got to know the customers as he helped his parents, who had emigrated from India, run their first, successful business on the corner of Second Avenue and Fourth Street.

“Our customers watched me grow up. I remember being a teenager there, and then I worked there through college. It’s a family business,” Mr. Shah, 34, told The Local. “It didn’t make us rich. It was more for survival. This is what we have, and this is what we will have, if it’s reconstructed. We are ready to do whatever it takes to bring this place back.”

On Tuesday at 4 a.m., a fire roared through the business, leaving the store, which Mr. Shah owns with his father, in ruins. Seven residents of the six-story building were treated for minor injuries, officials said; all of the injured were taken to Beth Israel Hospital. The fire, which was confined to the first floor, was declared under control within an hour. Mr. Shah said that the Fire Department told him it seems there was an electrical fire, but officials say the cause is still under investigation.

Mr. Shah estimates the damage at close to $500,000.

“This business is how I support my family,” said Mr. Shah, who has a wife, Niti Parekh, and 6-year-old son, Sahil. As he stood outside the boarded-up bodega, customer after customer walked by to offer apologies. One gave him a huge hug, and said, “It’ll be alright.”

He found out about the fire when his cashier, who was working the late shift at the 24-hour store, called him at 4 a.m. that morning. “I had just come back from India after a two-week break. They don’t usually call me then, so I knew there was something wrong,” he said. “There were sparks in the ceiling lights. It was a flammable drop ceiling. In the area where it started, we had paper products. It all caught fire really quickly.

“The workers tried to open water jugs and throw it on the fire, but they only did it to the point they thought it was safe. Then the FDNY came and took it from there.”

Mr. Shah arrived 15 minutes after he got the call. The damage was so bad that it took the better part of 24 hours for him to be able to see what was left of his store. “There’s a lot of water damage,” he said. “Most of the inventory, equipment and infrastructure have been damaged. It’s just something we have to deal with.”

He’s been busy meeting with his insurance investigator and an architect to assess the damage, and see how quickly he can rebuild the family business. “This was an area which was affordable 20 years ago,” Mr. Shah said. “The first line of work my father got was in a convenience store, and he found it interesting because of all the people. He wasn’t skilled in any profession, but he said, ‘This is something I can do.’ And he loved being around people all the time.”

“We’re hopeful that we can get it running again in one or two months,” Mr. Shah said. “It takes time to rebuild. We’ll recreate what we had. We’ll come back. We will.”

Suzanne Rozdeba Mr. Shah has been busy meeting with his insurance investigator and an architect to assess the damage, and determine how quickly he can rebuild the family business.

Suzanne Rozdeba A day after a fire that destroyed the 6th Street Kitchen restaurant and severely damaged several apartments above it, displaced residents of the building are still trying to cope with damage from the blaze and an uncertain timetable for a return to their homes. Below: Damage to a third-floor apartment.

Paul Canetti

When David Gold stopped by his apartment on East Sixth street Tuesday evening, hours after a fire ripped through the restaurant on the first floor, he couldn’t bear the smell.

“It smells terrible. It’s like being around the biggest campfire you’ve ever seen – in a closed apartment,” Mr. Gold told The Local earlier today. “You get a headache after being in there for 10 minutes. There was no way I could sleep there. It’s that bad.”

Instead, Mr. Gold spent the night at his girlfriend’s apartment. “I’m assuming I’ll be there at least a week until it’s cleaned up.”

Mr. Gold’s apartment was one of eight that firefighters stormed through after a blaze broke out in 6th Street Kitchen, the restaurant on the first floor of the building at 507 East Sixth Street. While the building’s management has already begun repair work, there is no timetable yet for when residents might be able to return. In the meantime, Mr. Gold and his displaced neighbors have taken temporary refuge with friends and family.

Even as residents adjusted to their jarring, new living arrangements, a fire department spokesman told The Local today that officials were continuing to investigate two fires that broke out there yesterday morning, and an earlier blaze at a bodega on Second Avenue and Fourth Street.

While Mr. Gold applauded the work of the firefighters, he’s left with torn-up floors, ripped-open walls, and broken furniture. “There’s so much smoke damage that I don’t know yet if it can be cleaned. If damage is bad enough, you have to replace your whole wardrobe.”

The management company of the East Sixth Street building already had workers repairing apartments last night, said Mr. Gold. “They’re cleaning up the walls, floors, and ceilings, and the smashed windows and doors. The problem is, I can’t really go back there until it’s done. Hopefully, they’ll do a quick job.”

While Mr. Gold’s apartment will eventually be restored, 6th Street Kitchen, which had quickly become a neighborhood favorite, is in ruins and its future remains uncertain.

“Chris is a wreck,” Annie Wang, a publicist for the restaurant, told The Local referring to Chris Genoversa, the restaurant’s owner. “Right now, we’re going through all our options. The staff is taking it pretty hard.”

Ms. Wang said Mr. Genoversa was told by the fire department that there seemed to have been an electrical fire in the restaurant, but an investigation is still pending. “It was the FDNY that called him yesterday morning to tell him about the fire. When I talked to him, he was just speechless. You could tell in the tone of his voice he was completely torn apart. He’s invested so much money into the place. We were all really optimistic about the New Year.”

“There are still a lot of things going on before Chris can make a decision on what to do next,” Ms. Wang said. “I don’t know how long it would take to fix the place up. It’s a complete mess.”

Courtesy of Eater NYThe 6th Street Kitchen last spring and after this morning’s fire.

Suzanne Rozdeba

The premises at 507 East Sixth Street, stricken by fire early this morning, housed the yearling restaurant 6th Street Kitchen which had replaced the long-established Oriental Grill early last year.

“O.G.,” as it was universally known, enjoyed a long run by New York restaurant standards – some 15 years – offering an Asian-fusion menu ranging from duck rolls to BBQ pork at reasonable prices. Regulars, including myself, missed the cozy, lived-in feel of the place and the friendly service when it closed. What replaced it looked altogether smarter and trendier, with communal tables, and an open kitchen; but an owner of O.G., Chris Genoversa, was behind the project, the prices were reasonable, and so I soon found myself eating there.

Gone were the Asian flavors, replaced by shareable plates of modern American food, evidently market-driven and seasonal, with a few hearty entrées like pork belly and radicchio topped with a poached egg. I found the transition to the new régime painless, and continued my patronage. My interest intensified last fall, when a new chef, Greg Torrech, began to stamp his personality on the menu. I discovered a remarkably light flan made with summer’s corn and topped with arugula and chanterelles, and a plate of fried chicken and waffles with what looked like cream but turned out to be smooth, seasoned ricotta.

Recently the wheels turned again and Andrew Kraft, who Mr. Torrech had brought in to work as his sous chef, assumed charge of the kitchen. He has continued the family-style dining theme of shared small plates, and you can still get the signature house-made chorizo and Manchego sliders. Publicist Annie Wang told The Local that the fire has been “devastating” for the kitchen team. Kitchen supplies were destroyed with the exception of one lucky chef’s tools. Mr. Genoversa’s guitar also survived, discovered undamaged in a well-charred guitar case. Here’s hoping this kitchen can rise again from the dismay of this morning’s ashes.

Kim Davis is the community editor of The Local East Village. He also authors a blog about restaurants and food.

A slideshow of images of this morning’s fire at 6th Street Kitchen by NYU Journalism’s Suzanne Rozdeba and community contributors Paul Canetti and David Gold.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

David Gold Flames erupt as firefighters attempt to enter the 6th Street Kitchen around 7:30 this morning. A second blaze around mid-morning forced another evacuation for the residents of apartments above the restaurant.

Shortly after the tenants of a Sixth Street apartment building were allowed to return to their homes after an early morning fire, they were forced to evacuate a second time while firefighters put out a lingering pocket of flames.

The second evacuation, which occurred around 9:40 a.m., came after firefighters extinguished a blaze that gutted the 6th Street Kitchen, a restaurant located on the ground floor of the building at 507 East Sixth Street.

A Fire Department spokesman said that fire marshals at the scene came across areas that were still smoldering on the first floor. They called for several units to return. “It wasn’t a major operation. It was put out in about 20 minutes,” said the spokesman.

Paul Canetti, 27, who lives on the building’s third floor said that he had returned to his apartment after being allowed back inside by firefighters.

“Within 30 seconds of being in the apartment, we couldn’t breathe, so we said, ‘No, we will not stay here,’ ” Mr. Canetti said. “We went back downstairs. Within five minutes, we hear them radioing for firefighters to come back because the fire was still burning between the first and second floor.”

Mr. Canetti said he and other tenants were again forced to evacuate.

Around 1 p.m., Mr. Canetti said they were let back into their apartments. “The apartment is a war zone. It’s pretty terrible. Everything is knocked over and completely covered in soot.”

The American Red Cross was at the scene and gave disaster relief paper work to the tenants. “They said we should call them if we need a place to stay, and they would put us up in a hotel for a few days,” he said. “I think I’m going to take them up on that because I definitely cannot stay in my apartment.”

Suzanne Rozdeba Firefighters at the scene of a blaze at Kitchen, a restaurant on East Sixth Street. The fire was one of two this morning in the East Village that sent eight people to the hospital with minor injuries.

Eight people were treated for minor injuries after two separate early-morning fires that broke out in the East Village today, one that destroyed a restaurant on East Sixth Street, and the other in a bodega on Second Avenue.

The first blaze occurred at East Fourth Street and Second Avenue around 4 a.m. at the East Village Farm Groceries store, the authorities said. Seven residents of the six-story building were treated for minor injuries, officials said; all of the injured were taken to Beth Israel Hospital. The fire, which was confined to the first floor, was declared under control within an hour.

The second fire, at 507 East Sixth Street, occurred around 7:30 a.m. inside 6th Street Kitchen, a restaurant on the first floor. The authorities said that a firefighter sustained a minor injury while battling the blaze and was being treated at Bellevue Hospital.

Deputy Chief Robert Carroll told The Local that firefighters had to cut their way through the restaurant’s roll-down security gate before they could put out the fire.

The restaurant was all but destroyed by the blaze. “It’s pretty bad,” Chief Carroll said of the damage. “It’s all burnt out. We had to go in there, take the ceilings down, check for any hidden fire.”

Paul Canetti, 27, who lives on the building’s third floor and was with his girlfriend, told The Local, “I woke up at 7:30. We heard the beeps from the fire alarms. We started to smell smoke. We opened the front door, and you couldn’t see in the hallway. It was filled with smoke.”

After exiting the building safely, he said, “A couple minutes later, the fire trucks came. They cut the locks off the restaurant gate. When they lifted it up, the flames came shooting out.”

David Gold, 32, who also lives on the third floor, said, “We heard four, loud pops. They sounded like gunshots. That woke me up. Then the smoke alarm went off and we came down and called 911.”

Tom Claxton, 35, who was staying at a friend’s apartment in the building, said, “I heard this large, cracking noise, and then the fire alarm started. A few minutes later I smelled smoke. I panicked, grabbed my laptop and a couple of things and got out. I just got in last night from London, and this was my first night here. Most of my things are still in a suitcase upstairs.”

The authorities said that investigators are still trying to determine what caused both blazes.

Suzanne Rozdeba A firefighter surveys the damage to the 6th Street Kitchen.

Firefighters are investigating the cause of two separate blazes that broke out in the East Village this morning. The first fire, near Second Avenue and East Fourth Street, occurred about 4 a.m. and was placed under control in about an hour; the second blaze, near East Sixth Street and Avenue A, erupted around 7:30 and was placed under control in about 45 minutes. There were no immediate reports of injuries in either blaze; reporters from The Local are on the scene and will post a full report as soon as we have more details.—Suzanne Rozdeba