A fire started on Sunday morning, October 13, in a storage room at The Chase Restaurant, 1012 State Street, and firefighters were able to put out the blaze within a half hour. I recently spoke with co-owner Nicole Bitar who told me that the iconic eatery will not be able to reopen this year and that they have a backup plan in the works.

“Chase always has a great Christmas and we are super sad that we can’t do that this year,” says Bitar. “But we still want to do something because we want give people a place where they can take pictures so we have the outside that we can use. We are hoping that we can open the front doors and decorate The Chase to the nines and let people come take pictures, have fun, and enjoy some outdoor music. Maybe, if [the city of Santa Barbara] lets me, I have a food truck with [my other restaurant] Via Maestra and we want to be able to do some of our food truck food right outside of The Chase to help generate some income as we start rebuilding.”

I am told that the fire was in the back part of the building and that it did go up a wall which now requires everything be taken out of the building, cleaned, sterilized, and brought back in. Once that job is completed Bitar will have a better idea about what the timeline will be to fully reopen the restaurant.