An early morning fire engulfs a family owned restaurant in only a matter of hours.
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BELLAIRE -- A family is dealing with the loss of their Antrim County restaurant after an early morning fire destroyed the building in only a matter of hours.
The fire started around 3 am Monday morning at Gio's Trattoria Grill on M-88 in Bellaire.
Crews were on scene for several hours trying to contain the blaze that had M-88 down to one lane and shut down Shanty Creek Road.
Greg Vereyken and his wife owned Gio's Trattoria for three years and planned to open a second one on Monday in Kalkaska. But those plans are now on hold after the early morning fire.
"I got woken up at 4:45 with my brother in law banging on my door, telling me that there was a fire at Gio's and first thing I thought was this place because we were just about to open it and then they told me no it was Bellaire. So we scrambled around and went over there as fast as we could," says Vereyken.
Vereyken says when he arrived at the scene, fire crews were trying to put out flames that were engulfing his business.
"The roof everything was totally burned off and everything was carved in and it was just black and there were flames coming up out of the middle area..it was just unbelievable, just devastating," says Vereyken.
A devastating fire with an unknown cause that investigators are looking into.
"We've got all kinds of electrical, we've got the hood system, ventilation system which they said they left on running all the time," says fire investigator with the Michigan State Police, Dale Hardy.
And the roof that was once on top the building is now scattered on the ground, which is part of the reason why fire officials say the family owned restaurant is a complete loss.
"Would you say it's a complete loss?" asks 7&4 News.
"The building in there? Yeah...yeah," says Hardy.
But despite the loss, Vereyken says he plans to reconstruct the Bellaire restaurant and start from scratch.
"We had a nice restaurant there, we had a nice cliental in Bellaire and had a nice three years there and we definitely want to do it again," says Vereyken.
Investigators say it took crews longer than three hours to contain the blaze.
