R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press Firefighters are shown after extinguishing a blaze at the Stonehouse restaurant in Escanaba Saturday. The building was destroyed.

ESCANABA — At the site where the Stonehouse restaurant had proudly served Escanaba for decades, sheaths of ice coated the helmets of firefighters. Fed by powerful, steady streams from fire hoses still trained on the smoldering remains of the restaurant, chunks of snow like miniature icebergs flowed down Lincoln Road. The long-standing and much-loved restaurant at the southeast corner of Escanaba’s two main streets was no more.

The building was destroyed by fire.

This was late morning on Saturday, Dec. 21, and the intersection of Ludington Street and Lincoln Road was blocked off in all directions. A fire had broken out on the southern side of the Stonehouse hours prior — one of the business owners, John Romps, Jr., said he had been driving by and heading towards his daughter’s house when he saw smoke around quarter to six in the morning.

Escanaba Public Safety Director John Gudwer said his department got the call at 5:58 a.m.

According to a press release, when officers arrived they discovered heavy smoke coming from the building. They tried to enter the building.

“We couldn’t get to the fire because the floor was compromised,” Gudwer said, referring to an area near the main entrance on the south side of the building that had a basement beneath it. “It collapsed just as the officers opened the door.”

While no one was believed to have been inside the building when the incident began, Gudwer said that one firefighter was taken to the emergency room.

Responders from Escanaba Public Safety, Ford River Township, the Delta County Sheriff Department, Escanaba Township and Michigan State Police were all on scene as efforts continued to douse the smoking heaps of rubble at 10:30 a.m. A Brunette and Son truck waited on one side of the parking lot while heavy equipment crunched through what remained of the restaurant and bar.

With the shock of the loss of a local landmark, an onlooker could almost forget the bitter cold until seeing the black gear of a Ford River firefighter encrusted with white ice.

Temperatures where in the lower to mid-teens when firefighters were battling the blaze

A restaurant has stood at 2223 Ludington St. since at least 1949. Long ago, it was Ted’s. The Romps purchased the place in 1982 and have held it since. The building owners are John Romps, Sr. and Starr Romps, while their two sons, John and Matthew, ran the business of the Stonehouse. It’s unclear what will become of things from here.

As an excavator turned over pieces of wall, shelving, and more on Saturday morning, smoke kept rising from the ruins, and hoses from the fire trucks kept blasting the smoldering mess.

Maintaining humor among a group of distressed witnesses, John Romps, Jr. said, “Well, whatever food was in there is definitely cooked.”

Cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Escanaba Public Safety was assisted at the scene by the Ford River Fire Department, Escanaba Township Fire Department, Rampart EMS, Michigan State Police, Delta County Sheriff’s Department, DTE, Escanaba Pubic Works Department, Escanaba Electric Department, Escanaba Water Department, Delta County Central Dispatch, Ed Brunette Construction and the Red Cross.

Escanaba Public Safety would also like to thank Citgo gas, Circle K, Wendy’s, Gladstone Deli, Elmer’s County Market and any other business that donated food and warm beverages to assist firefighters on scene.