A chicken restaurant at the intersection of West Main Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive suffered heavy damage Friday afternoon when a grease fire erupted during the business owner’s break.
Statesboro Fire Chief Tim Grams said the restaurant owners had taken a break, closing the business for a couple of hours, when the blaze broke out in the kitchen area.
The kitchen area was gutted, but the newly constructed dining area and an area containing walk-in freezers were saved, he said.
“We were able to make an aggressive attack and contain” the fire, Grams said.
While the flames were contained to the kitchen area, witnesses said the rest of the restaurant suffered heavy smoke damage and one window was broken out.
No flames were visible when firefighters arrived, but heavy smoke billowed from the building. Statesboro police closed down all streets surrounding the scene while a crowd of onlookers gathered.
No one was injured, Grams said.
Firefighters were dispatched around 4:05 p.m., and a firefighter at the scene radioed Bulloch Central 911 around 4:28 p.m. to report the fire was under control.
Bulloch Central 911 operators referred to the restaurant as “the Chicken Hut” when dispatching the call, but Grams was unsure of the business’s name. A sign on the building showed the name of a prior business.