Fire ripped through the interior of the Elephant Walk restaurant at 900 Beacon St. early yesterday morning, according to the workmen boarding up the shattered windows a few hours later.
Inside the ravaged seating area, glasses, covered in a layer of soot and ash still stood in their places among the ruins of the once opulently decorated restaurant.
An R+R Emergency Services worker said the blaze reportedly started at around 6:00 a.m., and was put out about an hour later, but not before it had blown through all the windows.
The news was devastating to part-owners Bob and Geraldine Perry, when they got the call early in the morning, they said.
‘The frustrating part is that we don’t know how it started at all,’ Bob Perry said, ‘except that it probably started in the bar.’
The fire started in the rear of the main dining area, and scorched everything, with the exception of the kitchen and basement, which suffered only minor smoke damage, according to Perry.
The Perrys said they hope to reopen in about three months, ideally in the beginning of May. Bob Perry gave a very low damage estimate of a few hundred thousand dollars.
‘Unfortunately, it costs much more to make things look pretty than be functional,’ he said, referring to the ‘irony of the destruction,’ as the unscathed kitchen would have been the easiest and cheapest room to replace.
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