REDWOOD CITY – The co-owner of a popular downtown Redwood City eatery vowed to rebuild after a two-alarm blaze tore through its kitchen Tuesday night, barely two months after the highly-lauded Yelp favorite opened.
On Wednesday, Jordan Makableh described a scene of chaos and confusion as the newest location of his family’s restaurant, Mazra, caught fire at the height of dinner hour. Makableh said he was already working with his brother on a plan to begin repairs to the smoldering, water-soaked mess.
If they return, it would mark the brothers’ second time facing a near-catastrophic hurdle after opening a restaurant in the last few years. The family began operating their first location in San Bruno in March 2020, just as pandemic restrictions were hitting the industry. Despite that, it went on to earn a top-100 Yelp ranking.
“This definitely is not the first time we’ve been faced with some adversity,” Makableh said. “And definitely won’t be our last time conquering it as well, I hope.”
The blaze was reported just before 8 p.m. Tuesday at the restaurant at 2021 Broadway, the Redwood City Fire Department reported.
Makableh said 120 people were having dinner inside and on the restaurant’s patios when he noticed a light smoke in the air. He then spotted flames beginning to seep between two metal panels behind the kitchen’s 18-foot, wood-fired charcoal grill, igniting wood in the wall behind it.
He and his staff first tried to put the fire out with a fire extinguisher, but the flames had already spread above a nearby electrical box. That’s when alarms started going off and workers started ordering people out of the restaurant. Once the restaurant was cleared, Makableh said he went back to the kitchen with the extinguishers while waiting for firefighters to arrive.
“We were just giving it all we could to keep the fire from escalating,” Makableh said. “Every time I extinguished it, it would just reignite.”
Fire crews managed to keep the blaze from spreading to neighboring units, said Redwood City Battalion Chief Chris Cottle.
“Rather than a big dramatic fire, it was just one we were chasing around in the walls,” Cottle said.
On Wednesday, much of the building was in shambles. While the customer seating area was largely spared any fire damage, parts of the kitchen, the ceiling and a hallway leading to the back patio were destroyed — either from flames or from fire crews working to snuff out all traces of flames in the walls. Two to three inches of water were left standing in parts of the building.
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The restaurant just opened on April 1, specializing in food made in the Levant region, including Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and other Eastern Mediterranean areas. The all-halal menu, cultivated by head chef Saif Makableh, features traditional family recipes from the brothers’ parents, who hail from Jordan.
Around the time that Mazra’s Redwood City location opened, the family closed their first building for a full-scale renovation project. That location had been a grocery store-turned-restaurant in need of major upgrades, Jordan Makableh said.
Makableh said he has been scrambling contractors from the first restaurant to the singed Redwood City location. In the meantime, a top priority will be finding ways to help his nearly 50 employees while they are unable to work during the repairs.
“There’s confusion, most definitely confusion,” Jordan Makableh said. “All sorts of mixed emotions. But above all, just pure sadness. You see it not only with my brother and I, but the employees. It’s just a devastating situation.”
Still, he said many customers have reached out to offer their support for the fledgling eatery.
“We’ve already gotten an absolute outpouring of love from our friends and Mazra community,” Jordan Makableh added. “As dark of a time as this might be, we are also stupidly, beyond grateful, without a doubt.”