GRAFTON, Ohio — The owner of a Grafton pizza shop that burned following a devastating fire along the village's historic Main Street vowed to rebuild even as crews loaded charred debris from the century-old building into trucks to be hauled away Tuesday.
"That was just the building, but the building was memories," said Scott Bohac, owner of Lu's Pizza. "It will be rebuilt. We will be back, you know? We will be here."
Lu's Pizza was one of four buildings damaged by the fire along Grafton's Main Street Monday. Two of those buildings, including Lu's, were destroyed.
"It was very heartbreaking, I couldn't sleep last night," said Lu Capp, Bohac's mother and the founder of the pizza shop which bears her name. "I didn't go to sleep until probably 4 or 5 o'clock this morning."
Capp, who opened Lu's in 1977, said she watched the fire online from her home Monday.
"I was numb. I just, I couldn't cry," Capp said. "I just felt cold chills."
Dozens of people gathered along Main Street Monday evening to watch demolition crews take down the parts of the building the fire didn't. Many of them, hoping to get one last taste of the restaurant that served families in Grafton for decades.
"We have people that come in now that came in and said 'you know, I have a family now, I have these little guys," said Lu's daughter Elaine Brown. "And when I was little I came here and I was a little guy and ate pizza so you know, it's went through three generations."
The state fire marshal's office is investigating the fire. A spokesman said Tuesday investigators hadn't discovered a cause.
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