THE ICON Thai owners Tide and Nina Bandith watched on as smoke and flames engulfed the restaurant they had worked so hard to open on Wednesday night.
The pair had just started to wrap up their first evening in the Kurri Kurri location when smoke started to billow from the exhaust fan, sparking a fire.
"It was our first night, it was such a surprise and a shock, we've never had a fire before," Mr Bandith said.
"We were quite busy on the first night, everything was running normally until after we finished and started cleaning up to go home, then it started smoking.
"We were all scared, surprised and shocked."
The couple also own a sister restaurant at Honeysuckle, and were hopeful their new business in Kurri Kurri would be a success.
Now, they have a long road ahead of them to rebuild and reopen.
Mr Bandith said they still hadn't been allowed back inside to assess the damage on Thursday.
"We rang the fire brigade and the firefighters came, it took two or three hours to stop the smoke and fire," he said.
"All the customers put on Facebook that they understand and feel sorry for us, asked us if we need a hand to clean up - they've been very good.
"We've never had a fire before, it will be tough. We'll need to close for a while and we'll need some money to rebuild.
"I feel like I'm dreaming, I'm just surprised because it was the first night, it's such a shock - we were very busy and so grateful for the customers in Kurri Kurri."
Firefighters rushed to the scene of the blaze just before 9pm on Wednesday night.
When they arrived the restaurant was alight, luckily firefighters were able to bring the fire under control quickly, keeping it contained to the roof.
It was a huge effort, with crews from Newcastle, East Maitland, Kurri Kurri, Kearsley, Abermain and Maitland working together to save the restaurant, Lower Hunter Fire and Rescue NSW duty commander Jim Crookston said.
"We were called to a single-level building with smoke issuing from the roof, the first crews arrived shortly after from Kurri Kurri and commenced their fire attack," he said.
"We received a further message for additional help to attend to the fire in the roof, crews battled the blaze internally and externally until a further request was made for an aerial platform to attend from Newcastle to provide access to the external roof and extinguish some hot spots."
At least 30 firefighters were on the scene, who went through several cylinders in their breathing apparatuses trying to bring the blaze under control.
Investigations indicated the fire started in the exhaust fan and was contained in the roof after it travelled up the flue.
Police were also at the scene assisting with traffic and crowd control.
It took firefighters about three hours to completely extinguish the blaze, which was doused around midnight.
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