While locals express hope that Southgate Family Restaurant will bounce back after a devastating fire Wednesday, owners Karl and Mirinda Schaumburg are still wondering exactly what caused the blaze.
“Obviously we’re not doing too well,” Karl Schaumburg told The Times Record on Thursday.
“At this point my heart really breaks for my employees,” Schaumburg said. “I worry about them.”
Bath Fire Capt. Chris Cummings said it appears the structure is a total loss. However, the Schaumburgs have family members who are builders, so they will evaluate what can be done with the building.
The fire was reported shortly before 6 p.m. Wednesday. Bath Fire Capt. Chris Cummings said firefighters arrived to find smoke coming from the kitchen and prep area.
State fire marshal’s investigators were at the scene Thursday working to determine the cause. Efforts to obtain an update from investigators Thursday were unsuccessful.
A Bath mainstay situated across the street from Bath Iron Works’ south gate, the business has changed hands quite a bit over the years.
Gerald LaRochelle owned the restaurant with his brother and brother-in-law from 1991 to the early 2000s.
LaRochelle recalled serving a lot of hungry shipbuilders coming off their shifts, and packing the restaurant with hunters on Saturday mornings.
The Schaumburgs managed Southgate for two years before purchasing it a little less than a year ago.
That family has worked in the restaurant business for about two decades, and it was their dream to own their own place. The couple lives right around the corner from the 55-seat restaurant — a fixture in Bath and their second home.
Under the Schaumburgs, Southgate’s customer base shifted to include more to locals, families and tourists.
“This is our pride and joy here,” he said. “We sunk everything we had into this.”
Schaumburg said hundreds of people have called or text messaged him expressing their sympathy.
“That restaurant has been great to our members, the shipbuilders here at Bath Iron Works,” Local S6 President Mike Keenan said on Thursday. “They’ve been great to the community, and the employees and folks who own it are just wonderful people. There’s a lot of sadness today about what occurred yesterday.”
Keenan said there are a lot of memories at the Southgate Restaurant, adding, “We hope that they can rebuild and we can make some new memories.”
“Southgate means a lot to a lot of people around here,” Mari Eosco, chairwoman of Bath City Council and interim director of Main Street Bath, said Thursday. “I think the whole community is in mourning.”
“I hope that they are the phoenix and they can rise out of this, because they have a whole community supporting them,” she added. “People are so emotionally attached, especially to breakfast places. The loyalty that I know people have for that restaurant runs very deep.”
TIMES RECORD Staff Writer Nathan Strout contributed to this story.
dmoore@timesrecord.com
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