CALLICOON — Joe and Lyndsey Lentini love Callicoon. The owners of Peppino's Restaurant on Main St. and the Callicoon Caffe and River Mart on Audley Dorrer Drive have put their heart and soul into the community.

But on Monday night, part of their dream turned into a nightmare as a stubborn fire caused extensive damage to the Caffe and River Mart.

“It's not fair,” Joe Lentini said on Wednesday afternoon. “We put so much work into it… it took a lot of dedication and a lot of time.”

The business on Audley Dorrer Drive employed between 15 - 20 people, Lentini said, opening at 6 a.m. seven days a week at the convenience store/gas station side and closing up at 9 p.m. on weekends on the Callicoon Caffe side.

Joe said the insurance company is currently investigating the fire, which is believed to have started just before 8 p.m. on Monday night.

“If everything comes through [insurance wise] we will start to rebuild,” he said. “It will be a lot of work.”

A look inside the building showed collapsed ceilings, hanging fixtures and insulation, and damaged merchandise and floors.

Joe credits the local fire departments who came to his family's rescue on Monday.

“They were incredible,” he said of the first responders. “Without them I don't think that building would be standing.”

Right now Joe and Lyndsey are focused on Peppino's, their Main Street, Callicoon restaurant, which has gained a reputation for outstanding food and atmosphere.

“Everybody has been so supportive,” Joe said.

Quick response helps firefighters

The Callicoon Volunteer Fire Dept. was having its weekly ‘house duty' to check its equipment when a call came in at 7:50 Monday night - fire at Callicoon Caffe and River Mart on Audley Dorrer Drive.

John Fisher, who was working at the convenience store at the time, said he heard “popping” noises and thought maybe someone had come in and was in the kitchen, cleaning up.

After he investigated the kitchen he continued to hear the noise and then went into the ladies' bathroom where he found nothing.

He and a co-worker then opened the men's bathroom door and saw the fire in the light fixture.

While the other employee grabbed a fire extinguisher, Fisher called 9-1-1.

“The whole thing [looking for the noise] took about two to three minutes,” Fisher said.

“We were there in two minutes [after the call came in],” Willie Maxwell, Callicoon Fire Chief said. “My car was going down Olympia Hill before the siren stopped sounding.”

The firefighters quickly layed hose, set up trucks to supply water from the Callicoon Creek and a Bridge St. fire hydrant and went into the building to attack the blaze.

“I believe it started in a light fixture [in the men's bathroom] and travelled up into the rafters,” Chief Maxwell said. “We opened the [drop] ceiling until we could find it, it was in the crawl spaces and traveled up into the rafters.”

Firemen vented both the metal roof above the convenience store and the shingled roof over the Callicoon Caffe to help fight the fire.

“The metal roof really holds the heat and is slippery, too,” he said.

According to Maxwell the building suffered extensive fire, smoke and water damage.

Firemen from Callicoon, Hortonville, Lake Huntington, Jeffersonville, and Equinunk volunteer fire departments responded along with the Upper Delaware Volunteer Ambulance Corps and Hancock Ambulance Corps. On stand-by were Hankins, North Branch, Youngsville and White Lake F.D.s.

As most of the attack was from within the large commercial structure, firemen wore Scott Air-Paks so they could safely enter the structure.

Chief Maxwell called in rescue trucks from both Jeffersonville and Lake Huntington, which have the ability to fill the air bottles at the scene.

The Jeffersonville rescue truck was busy ‘recharging' the bottles so firemen could re-enter the building.

Both companies also brought their tankers, “which we could have used” had the fire gotten bigger, Maxwell said.

The two-alarm blaze was under control in a little more than an hour-and-a-half.