A Lake Mary restaurant was closed Friday afternoon after an early morning fire and it will be days before it can reopen.
Investigators said the flames started in a chicken rotisserie at Keller's Bar-B-Q restaurant on Lake Emma Road. Friday morning, carpet cleaners and other workers come through, trying to fix up the place as quickly as possible.
Firefighters could not see the flames when they arrived, but the smoke was the dead giveaway. They had to break in to get to the flames in the kitchen.
The cleanup is expected to be lengthy. Early Friday morning, fire crews were mopping up the water that flooded the floor of the business when the sprinklers activated.
The fire broke out at 4:30 Friday morning. Crews had to break into the restaurant and, once firefighters made their way through all the smoke, they found a chicken rotisserie on fire.
The owner doesn't know if the rotisserie in his restaurant was accidentally left on or if, somehow, leftover oils inside the rotisserie caught fire. Either way, the flames that could have destroyed the place didn't, thanks to the working sprinkler system.
But with that fire suppression equipment comes a different kind of mess. Almost nothing is charred, but everything is soaked.
The owner did not want to talk on camera. It will be several days before the restaurant can reopen to customers. Most importantly, no one was hurt and the building was salvaged.
