Bono’s Pit Bar-B-Q likely will rebuild after a fire late March 9 damaged its restaurant off Gate Parkway, according to the company president.
The restaurant closed at 9 p.m. Firefighters responded to a call just before 10 p.m. and put out the fire around 10:50 p.m., according to Jacksonville Daily Record news partner News4Jax.
Bono’s President Josh Martino said March 10 a dishwasher noticed smoke in the back of the restaurant near the meat smoker and called 911. He and the three other employees cleaning up the restaurant escaped the building and no one was hurt.
While the fire didn’t spread far into the restaurant, smoke and water caused a lot of interior damage, he said.
“The smoke and water damage is pretty devastating, so I think – and we don’t know for certain – that we’re probably just going to have to tear the building down,” Martino said.
Martino and the fire marshal walked through the restaurant soon after the fire to assess the damage.
The fire marshal will continue the investigation to determine a cause.
Martino said the restaurant, built at 10065 Skinner Lake Drive in 2000, is one of the chain’s best-performing locations. It is next to Black Creek Outfitters and near St. Johns Town Center.
“It was there before Costco was there,” Martino said. “It was us, Black Creek and a bunch of pine trees. We had no idea that the carnival across the street called the Town Center was going to be built there.”
Bono’s operates 18 restaurants in Northeast Florida. Martino said he hopes to place the 33 Skinner Lake Drive employees in the company’s other restaurants or elsewhere around town.
“It’s just a sad day for the Bono’s family,” he said. “We can always rebuild and the happiest thing to come out of it was that nobody was hurt.”
