Month after fire, Thornbury's Orchid restaurant still waiting for insurance

A month after a devastating fire forced them to close, the Orchid Restaurant in Thornbury is still in recovery mode.

A basement fire on April 7 that caused significant smoke and water damage and minor structural damage has left the iconic local restaurant closed.

Owner/operator Jennifer White told CollingwoodToday the recovery process is taking time as they deal with the insurance company. Because of the delays, White has started a GoFundMe page to raise money to help support her part-time employees who don’t have their wages covered by insurance or unemployment insurance.

White called the insurance process “extremely slow.”

“I’m used to doing everything fast-paced and efficiently and being in control. This process is just tortuous. It’s going so slow. I’m not in control of any of it,” she said. “All I’ve got is a mountain of paperwork.”

She said her insurance policy covers just her full-time head cook and manager.

“None of the part-time staff are covered by the insurance. That was the fine print in the policy,” she said. “My goal is to hang on to my staff and not lose them. It’s hard enough to find the staff in the first place. I’m trying my best to keep them afloat.”

The Orchid usually has a complement of seven staff members, which grows to 10 during the busier summer months.

The GoFundMe page for The Orchid has already exceeded $15,000 and can be found online here.

White just celebrated her 30th anniversary owning the Orchid and this is the first time she has ever had a fire. The restaurant was just gearing up for the summer season.

“It looks like we’re going to miss the busiest part of the year,” she said. “It doesn’t look good for July, maybe we’ll get the tail end of August.”

White said a faulty dehumidifier caused the fire.

“I’ve been kind of wanting to get the word out about that too,” she said. “It literally burst into flames. You could see it just crackle and melt.”

White, her son and his girlfriend and their two dogs and cat were home at the time of the fire. They live in the apartment above the restaurant.

“We had just sat down to my son’s birthday dinner,” she said. The fire alarm sounded and she said they could see smoke coming from the floor vents. “I knew it was in the basement. When I got down there, the rafters and ceiling were just engulfed in flames.”

She emptied a fire extinguisher on the blaze, but it didn’t help much.

“The smoke got really bad and I had to get out of there,” she said.

White said there was some good luck in the situation. The fire caused the building’s main waterline to burst and that helped control the fire. She said if that hadn’t happened the damage would have been a lot worse.

“We’ve tried to focus on the good luck,” White said of the aftermath, noting that they weren’t asleep when the fire started, they were present in the building (she said many Sunday nights they wouldn’t have been there) and they all were able to get out safely.

The building suffered a lot of damage in the fire and White said they are waiting for a structural report about the extent of the damage before repairs can start.

The fire forced the shut off of electricity to the building, which would have caused the Orchid’s inventory of food to go bad. Fortunately, White said she was able to donate the food to friends, staff and other restaurants in Thornbury.

“I found a home for all the food so it didn’t get wasted,” she said.

White said she is anxious to get The Orchid back up and running and to see all of their loyal customers back and enjoying their meals.

“We have so many regulars and so many seniors counted on us to feed them. My heart goes out to everybody,” she said.