Costa's destroyed

Owner points to grease fire

02/03/2010 10:00 PM

By MICAH MAIDENBERG
Editor

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Firefighters watched their colleagues Monday morning wrap up efforts putting out the fire that decimated Costa’s restaurant in Greektown.
MICAH MAIDENBERG/Staff



A fire ripped through Costa’s in Greektown Sunday night and Monday morning, largely destroying the building at the northwest corner of Van Buren and Halsted that the restaurant inhabited. Two adjacent retail outlets, Greektown Music and the Athens Grocery, both located on Halsted, were damaged.

By Monday morning, fire personnel were wrapping up their fight against the blaze, which reduced the Costa’s building to a smoldering tangle of brick and wood. Around 9 a.m., several firemen continued to spray the insides of the building with a high-pressure hose as smoke poured out of the building. Debris was scattered across Halsted and Van Buren — glass, a singed menu from the restaurant.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation, but department spokesman Larry Langford said the owner of Costa’s reported a grease fryer started the fire. No one was injured. Langford said the fire was battled by 170 firefighters. Workers from ComEd and Peoples Gas, as well as a host of other city departments were also on the scene, according to Langford.

“The building was totally involved in fire,” he said. “The alarms were raised because the fire was so tough.”

Greektown business owners and workers surveyed the damaged as they arrived at work Monday.

A woman named Georgia, who would not give her last name, said her family owned the Athens Grocery. The store’s windows were blown out, and char from the fire could be seen inside. Asked how she was feeling, Georgia shook her head.

“Not very well,” she said. “We don’t know anything. We just got down here.”

News of the fire traveled fast. Some, like Steve Odicho, who worked as a valet for the past three years at the restaurant, first heard the news on his way into Greektown.

“It’s very sad,” Odicho said as he watched the firefighters wrap up their effort at Costa’s. “You know how many employees we are losing? Forty people worked in there.”

Athena Manolakos, who works at the Pan Hellenic Grocery, just north of the destroyed Athens Grocery, said she “started freaking out” when a call came in about the fire.

Once nearby, Manolakos described the damaged block as something nearly unbelievable.

“It’s like a scene out of a movie,” she said.

Though the Pan Hellenic Grocery was untouched by the fire, the impact of it would be felt along the block.

At Artopolis, a bakery and café about half a block north of the fire-struck area on Halsted, a few employees sat in the uncharacteristically empty front of the store.

Maria Melidis, the Artopolis’ general manager, said the owner of Costa’s was well known, “an old business man, not only in Greektown but other businesses as well. Very respectable.”

The owner of the restaurant could not be reached; a call to the Costa’s in Oak Brook was not returned.

What comes next for the southern part of Greektown — Van Buren is the border — is already under discussion though the future is somewhat unclear, like if Costa’s will rebuild and reopen.

“We’re going to assess what we’re going to have to do,” said Dean Maragos, a lawyer who advises the Greektown Special Service Area, a business improvement district. “We do have funds for street maintenance. We’ll do everything we can to help the community.”





Contact: mmaidenberg@chicagojournal.com


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