A week after the early morning fire that gutted Benny’s Pizza’s carryout building, the restaurant is open, albeit with a limited menu.
“We are open in the dining room building, the patio and the pub,” said Fred Neumeier, who owns the business with his wife and sons.
He said the restaurant, located at 968 Columbus Ave., is serving sandwiches and cauliflower crust pizza. He said staff is working to move a smoker from the carryout building to the dining room building so wings can be served soon. Neumeier explained that while the dining room and its kitchen were not damaged, the menu is still limited because much of the food prep work was done in the carryout building next door.
“There is a lot of stuff we just weren’t able to do because we weren’t able to set up for it,” Neumeier said.
The big one?
“We don’t have pizza right now,” Neumeier said. He acknowledged, “pizza is the main thing people want.”
Neumeier said he believes Benny’s will be serving pizza again soon.
“Starting Monday we will be set up again to begin serving pizza in the dining room,” Neumeier said.
He said customers will soon be able to come into the dining room to order a carryout pizza or even order carryout online, but employees are still working to figure out the details of how to make that happen.
“It is still a work in progress,” Neumeier said. “That building is not set up for carryout like it was 20 years ago.”
Neumeier also said that on Sundays, beginning Sunday, March 17, the restaurant will be open to serve carryout pizza from the dining room.
“That will give our loyal carryout customers an opportunity to get their pizzas and we want to be able to do that,” Neumeier said.
He said the dining room has not been as busy as he expected or hoped. He said he wasn’t sure if that was because people didn’t know if the restaurant was open or if they were waiting for pizza to return.
Even so, Neumeier said he has been “somewhat overwhelmed by the support we have received from the community and other restaurants in town that have stepped up to help.”
Benny’s officials say they do not know when the carryout building could be reopened. Neumeier said that while the outside of the carryout building doesn’t look too bad, the inside sustained “significant damage.”
“We are still waiting on the insurance to do their investigation and all the things they need to do,” Neumeier said.
He added, “I wish I could give you an answer, but I can’t. It’s up to insurance. A lot depends on what they want to do. I would say it will be four to six months, if not longer.”
He said the insurance company may say the building needs razed and rebuilt or may say it can remain standing and be repaired.
“We will do whatever they tell us we need to do,” Neumeier said.
Marysville Fire Chief Nathan Burns said that at about 2:50 a.m., March 1, a passerby saw smoke coming from the carryout building at 972 Columbus Ave. The witness called 911 to report the fire.
He said that when crews arrived they saw smoke coming from vents in the roof of the carryout building.
Burns said that when crews went in, the building was empty, there was “heavy smoke inside the building” and the fire was “significant.”
Firefighters located the fire in the kitchen.
Once the fire was out, investigators were called to the scene and determined the fire was accidental, caused by smoldering towels.
Neumeier said Benny’s has “been in Marysville a long time,” noting that his family has owned the restaurant for 29 years and the family before had it 18 years.
He said the fire is not the end for the pizza shop.
“We will be back. I just want people to know that,” Neumeier said. “It’s tough right now because we just don’t know when things will be back or what that looks like.”