Fire Presses Pause on Block House

SERVPRO, a cleaning company, parked outside of Block House. Servpro assisted with cleaning up the establishment following the fire.

OLIVET, Mich. – A fire broke out at Block House, the restaurant and esports center located on the corner of Main Street and Butterfield Highway in Olivet. The fire occurred at 4 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 12, and the “spontaneous combustion” of a bag that contained linen rags caused the fire, said Kyle Ritenburgh, the manager of Olivet’s Block House’s location. 

“We were just going through our day as normal,” said Ritenburgh. “I had cleaned a bag of linen; I brought it around 5 to 6 p.m.  Didn’t see or hear or smell anything, whatsoever.” 

Although Ritenburgh mentioned that the fire was small and restrained, it halted Block House’s ability to operate, as the restaurant shut down for an entire week. In addition to that, Block House co-founder Anthony Collamati said that they were fortunate that the linen rag bag wasn’t near anything flammable, resulting in the damage being minimal.

"The damage was really three things," said Collamati. "One, it was smoke that filled the facility. Two, when the fire department came, it was five in the morning, and we weren't able to let them in, so they broke the door down. Lastly, the extinguisher they used to put the fire out leaves residue, so physical damage was really just the door."

The damaged front door Block house, which was harmed by the firefighters in the process of putting the fire out.

SERVPRO, a company that specializes in cleaning, was present at Block House throughout the time that the business was closed.   

“SERVPRO had to come through and pretty much do a whole top to bottom deep clean,” Ritenburgh said. “Myself and a bunch of my employees were without work, but we were trying to make sure that everything is safe for everybody to come inside.”  

Leah Alfaro, a bartender at Block House, said that although last week’s closure has had some impact on her recent work experience, it hasn’t been too extensive. 

“I wasn’t able to come in and lost a couple of stuff behind the bar, like food-wise and everything that had to get replaced,” Alfaro said. “So then, [we] just had to wait a couple of days for that to come back in, but not anything too much from that.” 

Aside from the physical damage that was suffered, there was more to the incident from the business aspect. Collamati also expanded on what the week’s closure meant for their pocketbooks. 

“We had to close Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and then when we opened on Saturday, I think people were still maybe seeing that we closed all week,” said Collamati. “So, that was like a record-low day for us.”  

Additionally, Collamati mentioned that although insurance covered a majority of the damage expenses, the loss of business for them throughout the week resulted in no profit being made.   

Block House is also home to the University of Olivet esports team, as they utilize the space to practice and play their matches. They were also impacted by the fire on Sunday. 

“I think the biggest issue was, when we first came in here, we were kind of surprised we were allowed to be in here,” said junior, Nick Gutierrez.  

Gutierrez mentioned that the team had a league match to play, despite the smoke still being in the air, and glass still laying near the door. However, they still had to play through, despite there being no time to reschedule, and the conditions possibly posing a health risk to some of the players. 

“We had a couple of teammates with asthma. No one ended up getting sick besides our director, which was just really lucky,” said Gutierrez. “It was all around a pretty bad experience, if I’m being honest.” 

So, what’s next for Block House following the fire? Both Ritenburgh and Collamati have concrete plans in place to make sure that this kind of incident doesn’t happen again. 

“We’ve been changing our cleaning processes,” said Ritenburgh. “So, anything with our rags, we’ve changed it up from using just disposable blue cleaning rags, and you just toss it at the end of the day, so we don’t have to have this issue again.” 

If Block House were to have this issue again, however, they intend to make it much easier and more accessible for firefighters in the future. 

“We’re going to get a knock box, it’s called, so that the fire department has access to the keys,” said Collamati. “If this were to ever happen again, they would be able to use the key to open the doors.”  

Collamati mentioned that despite some worries about not following the code, they did everything that they should have done in this scenario. However, lessons were learned, regardless. 

“Sometimes bad stuff happens, even when you do everything right,” Collamati said. 

The Block house is now reopened to the public with hours as follows Tuesday through Saturday 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. They are closed Sunday and Monday.