Restaurant inside historic Pleasanton Hotel sustains minor damage in fire

Rubys & Roses Restaurant, which operates in the historic Pleasanton Hotel building on the edge of downtown, remains closed but escaped serious damage after a small interior fire during dinner service hours on Sunday night.

Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department personnel quickly controlled the fire inside a wall adjacent to the kitchen, preventing flames from spreading, although smoke did fill offices above, according to LPFD battalion chief Craig Berchtold.

“It was a small scare last night,” Rubys & Roses CEO Sadaf Shaghasi told the Weekly on Monday afternoon.

“The wall in the kitchen is shared with the hallway and the stove caused smoke to come up through the wall area, so we got worried and called the fire department so they had to open up the wall just for precaution, but thankfully it was nothing,” Shaghasi added. “However, the wall will have to be repaired before we open. Maybe it will be done today since contractors are there or tomorrow.”

The situation unfolded around 6 p.m. Sunday when LPFD units were called to the restaurant at 855 Main St. on a report of a potential commercial fire, according to Berchtold. “It was completely full of people,” he said.

Firefighters responded to a wall in a hallway adjacent to the kitchen, according to Berchtold.

With smoke visible, he said LPFD crews broke open a section of the wall and found an active fire inside. They quickly knocked out the flames, and then moved to make sure the fire had not spread above to the upstairs offices and below to the basement, which it had not — but there was smoke in the offices.

Berchtold said there was no significant damage to the structure, but the restaurant was yellow-tagged by the city building inspector, meaning the interior damage has to be fixed before it can reopen to patrons.

The origin and cause remain under investigation, according to Berchtold. LPFD remained at the scene for approximately two hours on Sunday night, with three engines, one truck unit and two battalion chiefs responding to the incident.

Though the restaurant is not allowed to open until the wall is repaired, Monday would have been a normal closure day, according to its operating hours online. Rubys & Roses has been in business for roughly a year in the historic Pleasanton Hotel building, which has not been used for lodging in decades and is currently a multi-tenant commercial operation.