Huge Fire Extinguishes a Trusted Family Favorite

• Get Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts.

An old family friend is gone from Walled Lake.

A favorite in the area since 1984, Pepino’s Restaurant burned to the ground Monday in a fire that an off-duty Milford firefighter reported about 3 p.m. as he passed by the restaurant and got a glimpse of a glow coming from the window.

Firefighters from West Bloomfield, Novi and Commerce Township assisted Orchard Lake crews in fighting the fire, but were unable to save the 100-year-old building at 118 West Walled Lake.

Firefighters had the stubborn blaze extinguished by 11 p.m., but it flared up again around 6 a.m. Tuesday, according to media reports.

Area residents mourned the loss of Pepino’s — a family restaurant owned by sisters Kathy Kwiecinski and Carol Carson known for its fish, chops, steaks and authentic Italian dishes — as they would a reliable friend.

West Bloomfield resident Patty Moss, who has been going to Pepino’s every Friday night for 20 years with her husband, told The Oakland Press the food was consistently good and the wait staff “treated you like royalty.”

“It was like ‘Cheers’,” Moss said. “Everyone knows your name.”

Another West Bloomfield resident, Harold Jacobson, was similarly vexed.

“Where am I going to eat?” Jacobson wondered.

For the owners, the loss was more crushing.

“It feels like part of our life is going down … memories, my mom, my dad, all the people who worked with us that have passed away,” Kwiecinski told WWJ. “It’s like a bad dream.”

The fire appears to have started in the kitchen, Walled Lake Fire Capt. Jason Gonzalez told The Oakland Press. The investigation is continuing.

Before Pepino’s Restaurant, the building housed the Town Pump.

» Screenshot and video from WXYZ-TV via Inform