Common Cookhouse Family Looks To Forge Ahead After Fire

OAK CREEK, WI — After a fire devastated Common Cookhouse on Rawson Avenue Wednesday afternoon, over a dozen small business owners who relied on the shared kitchen are trying to figure out how to get back on their feet.

The building held a kitchen for emerging food makers to launch and scale their businesses, such as Dillon Knight, a co-owner of The Trouble Makers Cocina Mad Mexican Food. Knight told Patch he was just getting ready for this weekend's events in the kitchen when the fire struck.

"It was just another normal day," Knight said.

He was cooking steak, gearing up to bring the food truck to Strawberry Fest in Cedarburg.

Then the fire alarm went off. Knight said he and others in the kitchen noticed a lot of smoke in the restaraunt area of the building. When Knight's business partner walked out the front door, he noticed the front was smoking — he could hear wood crackling. The Common Cookhouse owner called 911.

"We went out the back door, and before we know it, the whole place was up in flames," Knight said. "It's surreal, to just kind of see it all gone in a matter of an hour."

The fire broke out around 4:30 p.m. and firefighters arrived in minutes. A little over an hour later, authorites upgraded it to a second alarm. Firefighters found smoke emerging from the building and attacked the fire inside. But as firefighters worked, the blaze rapidly progressed, damaging the structure to the point that all first responders were pulled from the building, according to a news release from the Oak Creek Fire Department.

SEE ALSO: Common Cookhouse 'Devastated' By Fire, Small Businesses Impacted

A firefighter suffered a minor injury that day and two people were treated for possible smoke inhalation, authorites said. Fortunately, everyone was physically OK after the fire. The cause of the blaze is still unclear.

Common Cookhouse said it was "devastated" by the fire in a social media post. Many of the 18 businesses that used the commissary kitchen took to social media to find somewhere they could run their business instead in the meantime. Others began looking toward fundraisers and events to rebuild.

"As you can imagine, the list of things requiring attention is long and will take some time to get through," Common Cookhouse said.

Fire Impacts Businesses In Different Ways

Knight said his business is one of the luckier ones. Trouble Makers lost some food, some pots and pans, but the truck was not affected. This weekend's plans in Cedarburg are still on, he said.

The people who don't have a truck or a trailer, specifically the ones that do in-home meals, they lost everything, Knight said.

Oxtail Noodle House announced it had to cancel its planned appearance at an upcoming food truck event in Drexel Town Square. The business said it's still looking for another commercial kitchen to use.

Ruby's Bagels said in a Facebook post that it's already been offered spaces, but just picking up and moving is hard, especially considering the losses.

"I am waiting on my insurance to get back to me because our precious baby (our mixer) is probably gone and so is my fridge where we keep the bagels overnight and all of our cream cheese goodness," the bagel spot said in a Facebook post.

The Common Cookhouse Was A "Family"

"Being there, you spend so much time, especially in the service industry, we spend a lot of time with these people," Knight said. "We were really like a family at the Common Cookhouse between the different businesses, we would spend so much time together, we would share stories about different things that had happened."

After the fire, Knight is hoping to see support for his truck continue. Some of his Common Cookhouse colleagues are starting fundraisers for their businesses, assessing the damage, looking how to rebuild.

An important way for the community to help, Knight said, are donations and patronizing food trucks.

Another big thing for some of the small businesses is finding new kitchen space.

"If anybody knows, whether they have kitchen space," Knight said, "or knows of somebody that has available kitchen space, I would say that's the biggest thing. Because some of these businesses are now having to go through and figure out where they're going to do everything."

SEE ALSO: Fire Breaks Out At Building On Rawson Avenue In Oak Creek