A local bar was gutted by fire early Sunday morning.
Firefighters from Granby, Diamond and Neosho responded to The Granby Station, 148 W. Valley St., Granby, around 2:35 a.m. Sunday.
“It was fully involved when we got the call, and we had Neosho and Diamond as mutual aid,” Granby Fire Chief Kevin Johnson said. “It is under investigation by the Granby Police Department and the state fire marshal’s office.”
Firefighters returned to the scene later that day.
“We had a couple of little hot spots due to old building the way that it collapsed and everything,” Johnson said. “It is hard to dig in and get it all out.”
According to John Billings, owner, the bar shut down around 9 p.m. Saturday night. No one was in the bar at the time of the fire.
“I was out of town, at my daughter’s for Christmas,” Billings said. “I got a call at 3 o’clock in the morning (Sunday) from the fire marshal. He told me that the bar is burnt. I asked, ‘How bad is it?’
and he said, ‘well, there is really nothing left.’”
The building dates back to 1904, when it was used as the Granby train depot. It has been used as a laundry and other businesses as well. Billings has owned the business for more than four years.
“It had a pretty bad reputation when I bought it, but there was almost a completely different crowd coming in,” said Billings. “I had a New Year’s Eve party planned and I had four birthdays that I was going to do on Jan. 3.”
The bar served 5 percent beer and wine, along with pizzas and finger food. It was open Monday through Saturday.
“I just had a little closet, I did not have a kitchen, I had a pizza oven and microwave,” he said. “I just put a 24 by 24 addition on: I had the trusses done and the decking done. I was going to refinance the first part of the year and put another roof on it. That was going to be a kitchen, new bathrooms, and I was going to put in a beer garden, try to make it like a family restaurant-type bar.
“It is pretty heart breaking. It is everything that I have been working for the last four years. I retired from the federal government after 33 years. I bought this for a retirement investment.”
Billings is pondering about the future of the business.
“I am still kind of numb, I really don’t know what I am going to do,” said Billings. “I hope (to rebuild), but I don’t know. At this point, I just really don’t know what I can do. I will have to wait and see what happens.”
Not only was the bar destroyed, but also so was the memorabilia inside.
“I had a lot of old railroad pictures, a lot of stuff, because it was the original Granby Depot,” Billings said. “I wore coveralls, like an old engineer. I tried to keep the old building theme going.”
Parked near the building was a refrigerated beer truck. The fire also melted half of the truck that Billings used for storage.
Granby, Mo. —
