Restaurant Grease Fire in Owensboro, Indiana

There have been a lot of restaurant grease fires lately. I have been linking them on twitter and here and some other places and to be honest, it’s hard to keep up with them all.

I wonder if it is because of the extreme winter weather this time of year and hood cleaners aren’t taking the time to go on the roofs of these places and clean the exhaust fans and ducts. With snow and ice up there, it’s easy to skip it.

An Owensboro restaurant catches on fire Saturday afternoon. It happened at Old Hickory Pit BBQ on Washington Avenue, just before 5:00. When firefighters arrived there was heavy smoke coming from the building. Officials say the fire started in one of the fire pits. They say the ventilation system had some creosote build up, which also caught on fire, but firefighters were able to get it under control before it spread throughout the building. Firefighters say the dining room and kitchen sustained minor smoke and water damage. They say all the employees were able to get out of the restaurant safely.

This article says that there was creosote buildup in the ventilation system. Who knows when it was cleaned last? Owners and managers of restaurants sometimes give their cleaning duties to the lowest bidder and usually that lowest bid is low for a reason; they don’t clean the entire kitchen exhaust system!

I use this line in my advertising often, because it is so true, “Sometimes the cheapest price isn’t the least expensive choice”. Now, I’m not blaming the hood cleaner for this fire because to be honest, they can happen even if the system has been cleaned properly, but for arguments sake, lets say that the restaurant owner saved a few bucks on choosing this contractor.

They may save a couple of hundred dollars, even a thousand or so over the life of their contract. But, how much money did they lose from being closed and now having to repair their restaurant by choosing that lowest price?

For all of you hood cleaners out there, stick to your guns on prices! We know how much our insurance is. We know how much money it takes to run our businesses, it ain’t cheap! So when that restaurant owner says the last guy was cleaning it for $200 and you look down the duct and see months/years of build-up, you’ll know why they were only charging $200. They were simply cleaning where the owner could see and that was it.

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Fire started in ventilation system that was scheduled to be cleaned today!!! Wow. Kitchen exhaust cleaning is being put on the back burner by some restaurants struggling to stay above water in this economy. Now it will cost this owner a lot more than the price to have his vent hoods cleaned.

*Fire* destoys Shalimar *Restaurant* in Woodbridge

via Google Alerts – restaurant fire by NJ.com on 8/31/09

NJ.com

by Ryan Hutchins/For The Star-Ledger WOODBRIDGE — The Shalimar Restaurant on Oak Road in the Iselin section of Woodbridge was destroyed by a fire this …
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Posted via email from Anthony’s posterous

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