Black Walnut café owner vows to rebuild as Wortley Village mourns 'community hub'
CBC
The owner of the Black Walnut Café says the popular Wortley Village gathering spot destroyed by a fire early Sunday will be rebuilt and return "better than ever."
"It's obviously a devastating thing," said Ed Etheridge. "It was an iconic building and it was a community hub, and it's very sad to see it gone. It's our goal to rebuild it with as much of the same character as we can."
Emergency crews were called to the café at the corner of Wortley Road and Craig Street at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday.
It took crews to extinguish the fire, which is now under investigation. Police have deemed it's suspicious.
Ed and his sister, Mandy Etheridge, have operated the café for 12 years and also own the building.
No one was inside at the time the fire started. Ed's father lives in a recently renovated apartment above the café.
No injuries were reported.
Cleanup crews were on site Monday morning to remove what was left of the building, which is a total loss. Damage is estimated at $2 million.
There is no word on what started the blaze.
A hard drive that records video images from the building's security cameras has been recovered, Etheridge said.
"We were able to go through the rubble and retrieve it. Now it's just a question of if we can retrieve the data off that hard drive and see if we can get the information from it. It was somewhat water and smoke damaged."
On Monday, Old South residents came to the corner of Wortley Road and Craig Street to see an excavator and dump truck remove the charred remains of the building.
Old South resident Jeff Stringham said would go to the Black Walnut almost daily and was shocked to return from vacation to find it gone.
"I'm very sad about it," said Stringham. "I've probably met 30 to 50 neighbourhood people there. It's a wonderful social circle that had developed there."
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