By MADDY VITALE
A fire broke out Thursday night at Rick’s Breakfast House, 6112 Landis Ave. in Sea Isle City. There were no injuries.
Fire Chief Bryan Moran said emergency workers responded for a 7:29 p.m. call. Initially, emergency workers thought the blaze was at Uncle Oogies, 6118 Landis Ave., because the alarm came from that restaurant. The businesses are in the same building.
“Oogies was occupied and they didn’t know what was going on. There were no problems there,” Moran said in an interview Friday.
Firefighters located the fire in a storage room at Rick’s. Within minutes, it was put out.
“There was very light smoke coming out of the vents on the roof for cooking,” Moran said.
When firefighters entered through the back of the building, they encountered moderate to heavy smoke conditions and flames, Moran detailed.
“There was smoke damage. To my knowledge, it is closed for now,” Moran said. “The health department and code enforcement will have to determine when it is OK to reopen.”
Damage was mostly contained to the storage room.
“The sprinkler system did its job,” Moran added.
Rick’s has been owned by Debbie and Rick Pinter since 1997. They could not be reached for comment.
Sea Isle firefighters received mutual aid from firefighters in the neighboring towns of Avalon, Strathmere and Ocean View.
“We had a quick response from the neighboring communities. I would say altogether, we had about 30 firemen on scene and mutual aid companies,” Moran said.
He commended his department for “a job well done” to save the restaurant.
“Our guys got there. They did their jobs professionally to put the fire out and I can’t praise them enough,” Moran said. “They go above and beyond the expectations of the city and the residents all of the time.”
In a posting on social media, Uncle Oogies owners thanked the community for their concern.
“Uncle Oogie’s had no damage! We will be operating at regular hours! Thank you to our Sea Isle Fire Department, Sea Isle Police Department and Sea Isle Ambulance and all the first responders,” the message read.
The post continued, “Thank you to everyone that called and texted to make sure Uncle Oogie’s was OK! We thank you for all your support.”
