Deputy Fire Chief Glenn Fournier said the one-alarm fire was under control about 15 minutes after firefighters arrived around 1 a.m. last Friday.
Fournier said the fire was extinguished before it had a chance to get to the main dining room.
“They found it relatively quickly and knocked it down in a few minutes,” Fournier said. “We were pretty fortunate.”
Firefighters were alerted to the fire by a master alarm box located inside the restaurant.
The cause of the blaze is still under investigation. Assisting Amesbury firefighters were units from the Newburyport and Merrimac Fire Departments. Salisbury firefighters covered the Amesbury station during the fire.
In addition to fire damage, the back office sustained water damage. While the main dining room escaped damage, smoke did fill the room.
On Monday morning, Amesbury Building Inspector Dennis Nadeau along with a member of the Health Department visited the restaurant, right next to the onramp to Interstate 95, to check out the establishment before it re-opened to customers.
“They were lucky that there was a heat detector there,” Nadeau said. “It saved the building.”
