“We have people lined up to assess the damage once we are allowed to get in, and we’ll have to plan from there,” Palmer said Thursday. “We just have to take it in stride.”
The fire started in a chicken roaster shortly before 9:30 a.m. as patrons were eating breakfast in the 22,000-square-foot facility on U.S. 42, according to an employee who was present. On Thursday, the state fire marshal ruled the fire was accidental.
Approximately 50 people — 30 customers and 20 employees — escaped without injury.
Vicky VanNatta, a spokeswoman for Dutch Corp., said fire walls contained the damage to the kitchen.
“But that’s the heart of the house,” she said. “How can you operate a restaurant without a kitchen?”
Pam Bowman and others across the country who sent well wishes to the restaurant hope it does. Bowman and her husband operated the restaurant 11 years before it was named Der Dutchman.
“I was pregnant with my third daughter when our family bought it,” Bowman said. “My son washed dishes for awhile and our oldest daughter was a coat check girl. It’s very bittersweet to look back and see what happened.”
The first restaurant at the site was “1776,” a small family style eatery Bill and Helen Lemey opened in 1973, according to their daughter, Bonnie Larkins. The 1776 building is now Carlisle Gifts, also owned by Dutch Corp.
Bowman worked her way through college as a waitress at 1776. In 1987, she and her husband Dale convinced her father-in-law, Woody Bowman, owner of the popular Woody’s Marketplace in West Carrollton, to buy the restaurant. They renamed it Der Dutchler.
“Woody was Pennsylvania Dutch and he wanted to make this new restaurant reflect his heritage,” Bowman said.
The Bowmans expanded the operation, selling the Der Dutchler to Dutch Corp. in 1999. The Bowmans now run Hammel House in Waynesville.
Condolences for Der Dutchman poured in from around the country.
“This restaurant was always such a wonderful place to meet with relatives from Adams County and those north of Dayton,” said Sandra Chetty, a resident of Fremont, Calif.
Cindy Heflin of Beavercreek thought back to her daughter’s wedding reception this year.
“This same sense of family is easily observed among the entire Der Dutchman staff, and what makes today’s terrible event so heartbreaking,” Heflin said.
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4544 or jmcclelland@coxohio.com.
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