Emma's Ale House Donates Food After Fire

Sunday, Oct. 2 was a bad for New York sports fans, the Yankees, the Giants and the Jets, however, it wasn’t as bad a day for them as it was for Casey Egan. The 39-year-old was at the Columbus Day festival with his 3-year-old son Quinn, wife and mother when he got a phone call around 3:30 p.m. that his restaurant was on fire.

Though everyone seemed to be losing that day, Egan made sure that someone won.

“I always feel in life that if you are able to help someone else you should, even if you’re being kicked while you’re down,” said Egan, who lives in the Rosedale neighborhood of White Plains.

When he arrived at he found about seven fire trucks in front of 68 Gedney Way, as well as fire fighters on the roof trying to put out the fire, which started in the kitchen. The fire caused about $20,000 worth of damage, and the restaurant has been closed since then.

Despite his lost, Casey donated about 154 pounds or $5,000 worth of food to the Food Bank for Westchester.

“It is amazing and wonderful that Casey Egan thought about our hungry neighbors while confronting this distressing event at Emma’s Ale House," said Jeanne Wilcox, Food Bank for Westchester Communications Manager.

"The Food Bank for Westchester relies on the generous support of local businesses, volunteers, food suppliers and donors, so we thank Casey for thinking of us. Many hungry people have already benefited from his thoughtful gift of food.” 

The Food Bank for Westchester is a non-profit organization that distributes food to 227 food pantries, soup kitchens and other hunger relief programs in Westchester.

“I wasn’t going to use the food, and I didn’t want to throw it away,” he said. “Hopefully we helped some people.” 

The lifelong White Plains resident—who opened the American comfort food restaurant named after Casey's yellow Labrador in November of 2008—hopes to re-open sometime next week. In the meantime, he has been struggling to work with his insurance company, which he says has been “very unpleasant,” experience.

“You have insurance, and you do the preparations and make sure to do the right thing, but you never really think that it’s going to happen,” said Casey.  “Then you show up [at the fire] and it’s happened and you’re like “wait a second, wow.’”

Casey said the main point of the story is that no one was hurt, all the employees and customers made it out safely.

“As unpleasant as this two weeks has been you can go to sleep,” said Casey. “It’s not we you had a nightmare scenario on our hands. We are blessed in that respect.”

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