A Kernersville tradition will soon return. Last summer, a fire destroyed Fitz on Main in Kernersville. The renowned restaurant will return next week.
Nixon Norman of WFMY News 2 learned how support fueled their resilience.
Fitz on Main’s owner, David Fitzpatrick, opened the doors more than 15 years ago, and the regulars have become like family.
He stated that Fitz on Main will soon be better than ever, bringing in a lot of ‘new’ to the restaurant while retaining the essence of Fitz before the fire.
“You just think you’re a small lunch counter providing hot dogs and hamburgers, and you have no idea how much you’ve influenced their lives because they come on a regular basis. It may be an overused word, but it is ‘family’, and that is what has happened without our knowledge: we have established a family over the last 15-16 years,” Fitzpatrick added.
Fitzpatrick stated that everyone from veteran support groups to the Chamber of Commerce, to folks who stop by his restaurant for a bite to eat, came out of the woodwork to support him during these trying times.
That was the silver lining for him.
“The day after our fire, we can’t count the number of people that came by to lend their support, the VFW came and platoons, along with the Chamber of Commerce and they emptied the entire restaurant, whether it was saved equipment or not, everything was placed out of the grill and put in the back alley so we could see what we could rescue and what had to be trashed,” Fitzpatrick told me.
Fitzpatrick is most proud of the fact that he still has more than a dozen pieces of memorabilia and decor that survived the fire, which he never saw coming.
“You never imagined that something as basic as an exhaust fan could cause such extensive damage, but you live and learn. After what occurred in Western North Carolina with the hurricane, and then what happened in Los Angeles, and we’re just a small grill, we don’t live here, it puts everything into perspective, but the community’s support is why we rebuilt,” Fitzpatrick said.
Fitz on Main is scheduled to reopen on January 30.
As a special appreciation, they reopened the restaurant early Thursday to serve the contractors who had worked so hard to get it back up and running.
Friday, a special breakfast will be held to thank the Chamber of Commerce for their assistance throughout this journey.
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