A Bellaire firefighter checked out the smoky scene upstairs Friday evening, after a kitchen fire caught hold of the crawl space between the first and second floor. Photo by Hadley Robinson

BELLAIRE - They say bad things come in threes.

Seems that may be true for Antrim County restaurants.

Friday evening Lulu's Bistro in Bellaire became the third dining establishment in the county to be struck by fire this summer - Blue Pelican burned completely July 29 and Gio's Trattoria Grille in Bellaire was taken down with flames June 9.

The fire at Lulu's, which started in the kitchen around 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 1, was not as destructive, but was enough to shut down the popular spot temporarily until the damaged areas can be fixed.

"We don't know for sure how long we're going to be closed for," said the general manger of Lulu's and Siren Hall in Elk Rapids, Mindy Bisson. "We are meeting with our insurance agent today (Monday) and we just need to get clearance from the fire chief that we can start touching things, because right now we can't do that."

According to Bellaire Fire Chief Chris Dewey, stock pots were sitting on the stove all day and the steel panel between the stove and the internal wall got so hot that it caused the wooden wall to start smoking.

Ê "It set fire inside the wall," Dewey said. "And it started going up into the crawl area between downstairs and upstairs."

In the restaurant it caused light smoking for awhile. Some of the employees that lined the street after evacuation said they could smell smoke when they first came to work at 4 p.m. that day.

The crawl space was hard for the firefighters, who responded from Bellaire, Central Lake and Mancelona departments, to get to and four holes were cut in the floors of some of the upstairs apartments, according to Dewey. Though it was just smoke everywhere else, Dewey said they could see fire in the crawl space once they cut the floor.

Dewey said buildings that are remodeled and added onto can be troublesome when fire catches, which is one reason fire spread so quickly last week at the Blue Pelican.

"This is a typical remodel building," he said. "Looks so fine on the outside, but it's a nightmare for us."

Dewey said building codes will require all charred material be torn out.

The main damage is on the wall between the men's bathroom and the kitchen, according to restaurant management, who hope to start working to repair immediately.

"As soon as we get the OK to start fixing the wall that's damaged, we're hoping it will be a couple days of construction - our builder said it would be a couple days," Bisson said. "But it's up in the air right now."

With no exact timetable at this point, Bisson said Lulu's will have an answering machine kept up to date with the expected date of re-opening.

Hadley Robinson can be reached at hrobinson@michigannewspapers.com or by calling 231-533-8523.