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Brickyard owners say they plan to rebuild after overnight fire

The Brickyard, a popular restaurant and brewery in Lewiston, was heavily damaged from fire overnight. But the owners say they will be back.

LEWISTON, N.Y. — The owners of a popular restaurant in Lewiston say they plan to rebuild after fire seriously damaged the restaurant overnight.

The Brickyard's restaurant and brewery next door were both affected.

Brickyard is a popular place, and under normal circumstances, it is a real summer hotspot. 

Throughout the day, we've seen a lot of people coming and going, taking a look at the damage for themselves.

No one was inside the Brickyard at the time of the fire.

The fire started to spread around 10:30pm Tuesday night and took a few hours to get under control. 

Investigators say the Brickyard Brewery, next to the restaurant suffered extensive damage, the restaurant itself suffered water and smoke damage. 

"Teams tried to make entry and made entry into the building started working on the fire, but were pulled out because of conditions deteriorating from that point they put up master streams and ladder towers to assist in knocking down the fire," said Jonathan Schultz, the Niagara County Fire Coordinator. 

We did hear from a co-owner of the Brickyard, Eric Matthews, who says from conversations he has had with fire investigators, it's possible that a cooler malfunctioned and burned up into the brewery, causing the roof to collapse. 

Fire investigators would not independently confirm that information right now.

Matthews says he's absolutely devastated by this fire and feel terrible for their employees who are out of work again in the COVID-19 crisis. 

"It's terrible, I feel bad for our employees everybody that's worked with us the community itself it was such a community driven place people just loved to come to," Matthews said. 

Owners of the restaurant/brewery say they are insured and they believe the brewery is a total loss and that the restaurant likely will have to be demolished. 

And that, it could take a year to get the brewery back.   

The Brickyard says that it will rebuild and that the community support has been overwhelming.

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