David Sepulveda Photo
Memories were as thick as the smoke that poured out of Delaney’s Restaurant & Tap Room again — but this time the building was left standing and the damage was minor.
The smoke came from a one-alarm fire at the restaurant in Westville Village Saturday around 6:30 p.m.
Thirty-five firefighters responded to the fire, which started in a rear corner of the building.
With Whalley Avenue closed between Tour Avenue to Blake Street, firefighters could be seen climbing to the roof to create vent holes in the building’s roof. Thick fire hoses snaked up Westville to a hydrant outside Pistachio Cafe.
The firefighters were able to extinguish before it spread, according to Assistant Fire Chief Daniel Coughlin. He said damage to the building was minimal. No one was injured. The cause is under investigation, with at this point “nothing to lead us to think it was suspsicious,” Coughlin said.
The restaurant is at the back of a mini shopping plaza — across the street from where Delaney’s used to occupy the first floor of a larger, more prominent century-old landmark wood structure at the corner of Whalley and Central. A blaze in 2014 destroyed the building and left ten tenants homeless; that lot remains vacant to this day after plans to rebuild there fell through.
Both versions of Delaney’s have had loyal followings among off-duty firefighters; two retired firefighters were just arriving to the tap room Saturday night when the fire changed their plans.