The Long John Silver's restaurant in Temple burned down Monday evening leaving nothing but charred remains.
Just after 6 p.m., Temple Fire and Rescue responded to reports of a structure fire on 31st Street and arrived to find heavy smoke and flames rising from Long John Silver’s across from Temple mall.
The news of the fire quickly spread through the community.
”They were kind of going, well I guess y’all aren’t going to get no more fish and clams from Long John Silver’s. It’s a blazing,” said Linda Cox, Temple resident and frequent Long John Silver’s customer.
”I got a text message asking if I was okay yesterday and I was like 'Yeah I'm okay ... why what’s up?' Oh, there’s a huge fire near your work,” said Austin Collins, Mike’s Gold Buyers employee.
Collins, who works right next to Long John Silver’s didn’t frequent the seafood restaurant but said it seemed to be a popular place in Temple.
”It was always packed. Especially around 12:30 or 1 p.m. There would be huge lines you know because it was the only one left in town. Dutch Bro’s took over the other one,” said Collins.
As a Temple resident Cox said she and her family were one of the cars that helped make up some of those long lines on a regular basis.
”It was one of the good restaurants that there was for regular fish and your clams. I mean, even my kids enjoyed it,” said Cox.
Long John Silver’s is only a little more than ashes now and Cox said the news of the fire came as a painful shock.
”It actually, I kind of really hurts because that was one of the good places that you could actually go to get fish,” said Cox.
Cox and her children are deeply upset that their favorite place to get fish is gone and now they're just hoping it gets rebuilt.
”I don’t know if they are or not but that’s what we can all hope," said Cox. "You know they say, expect the worst and hope for the best.”
No one was injured in the fire, however, the building is a total loss.
