Pancake House Owners Reveal Cause Of Fire, Reopening Plans

JOLIET, IL— The long-time owners of Joliet's incredibly popular Old Fashioned Pancake House, a breakfast and brunch restaurant at 2022 West Jefferson St. since 1988, told Joliet Patch they are grateful nobody was hurt during Thursday night's fire that happened about three-and-a-half hours after they closed for the day.

The Old Fashioned Pancake House Facebook page informed customers that it will remain closed until further notice "due to the unforeseen fire."

On Friday, Panagioti "Pano" Zografos, son of the restaurant owner, Dimitrios "Jimmy" Zografos and Pano's sister, Despina, let Joliet Patch inside the closed restaurant to show the damage and the areas of the restaurant that were not damaged by the fire.

"Thank God nobody was hurt, nobody was in the building," Pano remarked.

The restaurant's kitchen and the two main dining room areas did not sustain any water damage from Joliet's firefighters putting out the roof fire.

The fire was confined to the southern corner of the roof.

Workers repairing the roof on Friday morning showed Joliet Patch where they suspect the fire originated: a broken electrical wire that ran power to light the neon restaurant sign around the entire building.

One of the workers told Patch that the mixture of recent snow and ice probably caused the electrical wire to break, prompting the roof fire to happen.

Pano's father told Joliet Patch that "I am hoping next Tuesday or Wednesday we might be open."

Old Fashioned Pancake House is normally open from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week.

"We don't have too much damage, but we want to make sure that the premises is safe," Pano pointed out.

This is the second time there has been a fire at Old Fashioned Pancake House, but the first fire was 30 years ago, the owners said.

Friday's interview with Patch took place inside the darkened restaurant. By 1:30 p.m. the city of Joliet had let the building contractors restore the electricity.

One of the more devastating aspects of Thursday night's fire: about $50,000 in refrigerated food product got ruined. All that food must be thrown away, Pano's father said.

"Fifty thousand dollars worth of food, that's a lot of food. That's the worst part," he said.

The Zografos family returned to their restaurant after learning of Thursday night's fire. They said at least a half dozen of their dedicated employees also came to the restaurant.

"Our main concern right now is our employees and getting them back to work," Pano said. "A lot of employees came out last night to see it, and we want to thank them for their dedication and concern for us.

"The Joliet Fire Department was great. They dealt with it immediately."

As for the inside of the restaurant, "No water damage is evident," Pano said. "We're very fortunate, of course."

Lastly, Pano wanted to thank his family's loyal customer base.

"A lot of them have come by to check up on us," he said. "Thank the patrons and other business owners in the area."