The unofficial start to summer brings with it the official flock of tourists to Colonial Williamsburg.
But it was an unwelcome visitor in the form of a fire early Monday morning that almost ruined the season for the new Dog Street Pub before it could even open.
It was a new alarm system that put firefighters on the scene in just two minutes, preventing the fire from being disastrous.
It was still enough to give owner David Everett flashbacks of 2006 when his nearby Blue Talon restaurant was heavily damaged in a fire that gutted the Baskin Robbins.
"Having been through this sort of thing in the past, it can be pretty invasive and this was very minimal,” says David.
In fact, the water that put the fire out is causing more of a problem than the fire itself.
Cleaning up that water will be faster than repairing fire damage, meaning the delay in opening the pub will be days instead of months.
"Everybody complains about codes and code compliance and then you have something like this happen and now you know why they are there," says David.
