Merivale Fish Market closes temporarily due to fire next door

The Merivale Fish Market -- a popular west Ottawa restaurant and store -- is temporarily closed because of a fire at an adjacent business.

All of the fresh fish had to be thrown out and owners are currently assessing the damage to what was a newly renovated building.

For as long as Anthony Epifano can remember, the Merivale Fish Market has been part of his life.

"It's been a family business since 1993. So, kind of been in and around this since I could walk," he tells CTV News Ottawa.

The smoke made its way to the market, causing damage, when the fire started next door in the early hours of Thursday morning, he said.

"So, I woke up to 11 missed calls," said Epifano.

"The whole building is attached. So, it didn't take long for smoke and stuff to come into our market."

He says that they are still assessing the extent of the damage.

"We have insurance inspectors coming in and they got to deem how much damage was done to the structure between the fire itself, and also when they were putting out the fire, there was a lot of water used," he said.

Epifano says it happened at the worst time.

"The worst part is this happened going into a weekend. So, right where we like to load up, have lots of fresh fish on hand for our customers. So, yeah there was definitely quite a bit of food loss," he said.

“It hurts, like, I don’t like wasting food."

Crews hooked up a generator to power freezers to preserve what is left.

The fire started at an adjacent vacant pizza restaurant, formerly Joe's Pizza. Ottawa Fire Services was able to stop the fire before it spread further.

"We were fortunate enough that a passerby saw the fire in the early developments of the fire on the way to work (and) called 911. And fire crews arrived less than four minutes," said Jimmy D. Fata, assistant division chief, Fire Investigation Unit with the Ottawa Fire Services.

He says the fire wasn't deemed suspicious.

"After our fire investigation, it was deemed it was an electrical failure of a power bar," he said.

On what would have been a busy Friday for the restaurant and market, many were disappointed by the loss.

"It's a good business and know these people for a long time, many, many years. And yeah, so it's pretty sad, hopefully, that they recover from it and they reopen soon," said longtime customer Monique Fournier.

Even restaurant suppliers were stopping by to offer support.

"Honestly, I live in the neighborhood as well. My family and I come and eat here," said Dean Potterton with Collective Arts.

When will the market re-open?

"You know, it's at least two weeks just in terms of clean up getting people in here. We've got to get hydro back hooked up. We've got to get a gas line back in here. So, we're going to re-evaluate in two weeks. But hopefully it's not much longer than that," said Epifano.

For now, he's cleaning up, taking a break, and looking forward to coming back.

"And once we're open, we hope to see all you guys here lined up out the door," he said.