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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

First-hand account of the Village Deli fire

Firefighters spray the back side of the Village Deli where the fire broke out.

I was eating at the Village Deli, stealing home fries off my mom’s plate, when the smell of smoke reached our table. We were next to the kitchen. I could overhear the discussion between the staff.

“I think it’s from the back.”

“Should we evacuate?”

“Someone should tell the diners.”

The other customers continued to eat, but I had been seized by panic. I poked my mom’s wrist several times with my fork.

“I think we have to leave?”

Dark smoke crept into the dining area from the kitchen as a waiter in a green shirt cleared his throat.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Everyone needs to leave the building immediately.”

I grabbed my coat and purse. The lights were flickering and strange noises erupted from the kitchen. I spotted one of my floormates in the throng of people exiting the Deli.

“Morgan, Morgan!”

He turned his head. I ran up to him as we left the building.

“I didn’t know you worked here. Do you know what’s going on?”

“Something in the back,” he said, before telling me to talk to a worker in a blue shirt.

Black smoke billowed up from the back of the building. My mom stood right outside of the Deli, taking pictures. A man in a blue shirt ushered her across the street.

“Excuse me, did you see what happened?” I said.

“What? Yes, why?” he said. I asked him what he had seen and if he knew the source of the fire.

“It was the cold room compressor,” he said. “I think it must have exploded or something. We heard something, a pop, and when we opened it a bunch of smoke came out and filled up the kitchen.”

The fire truck alarm blared as he tried to tell me everyone in the building was safe. Then we saw the flames creeping up from behind the building.

“We can pay for breakfast the next time we come down,” my dad said. He kept repeating that again and again as we stared at the abandoned food in the restaurant’s window.

The Village Deli shook as the pressure in the restaurant changed.

It sounded like something within the building had collapsed.

The firemen aimed their hoses at the fire, and the smoke turned white.

“What’s a good caption for this picture?” my mom asked. She was posting a photo of the fire to Facebook.

“Food was a little burnt,” my dad said. “Three stars.”

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