Beloved North Jersey Diner Damaged In Thursday Structure Fire

SPARTA, NJ - A beloved Sparta diner was damaged in a Thursday night fire, officials said.

The Sparta Classic Diner, located at 80 Woodport Rd., caught fire around midnight on Thursday, with heavy fire conditions reported in the kitchen and flames coming through the roof, the township fire department wrote in a Facebook post.

The fire was knocked down about an hour later, and all crews cleared the scene around 2:23 a.m., the department said. There were no reported injuries, although one Firefighter was treated on-scene for heat exhaustion as units were packing up.

The cause of the fire is not yet determined and is under investigation.

Fire Chief Justin Muldoon told the New Jersey Herald that he wasn’t sure if the building would need to be torn down, but noted that the building department would inspect the structure.

"It's heavily damaged in the kitchen," Muldoon said. "That's where most of it was concentrated, the rest of the building had smoke damage."

The department thanked Andover, Ogdensburg, Hardyston and Jefferson Co. 2 fire departments for their assistance in battling the blaze, as well as Sparta EMS and the Sparta Township Police Department for help with medical care and traffic control.

A request for comment regarding reopening was not immediately returned by the diner, but Google marks the diner as ‘temporarily closed’ as of Friday morning.

“Due to [the] fire, our restaurant will remain closed temporarily. Please visit back soon for updates,” the diner’s website reads.