Plaza fire indefinitely shuts down businesses

FREMONT >> A fire that ignited at a family-owned laundromat in a Fremont shopping center has indefinitely shuttered three businesses, including a popular dumpling restaurant and a longstanding hair salon and spa.

Fremont Fire Department officials are still investigating the cause of the fire that broke out at Launderland at 3158 Walnut Ave. in the Walnut Plaza shopping center on May 25. An employee of the laundromat called 911 to report the fire around 7:15 a.m., said Fremont Fire Department Deputy Chief of Operations Zoraida Diaz.

After the first crews arrived, a second alarm was called, and nearly three dozen firefighters worked to control the blaze, Diaz said.

Launderland owners Julie

and Rob Bos say the business has been in their family for more than four decades, when Julie’s father founded it.

“Clearly, it’s devastating,” Julie Bos said Tuesday of the fire that destroyed their business.

Julie Bos said they still don’t know how the fire started.

“We’ve been there for 41 years and never experienced anything like this,” she said.

“She was heartbroken,” Rob Bos, who managed repairs and maintenance at the business, said of his wife’s reaction to finding out about the fire.

Customers liked Launderland because of its cleanliness, because machines were very rarely out of order, and for its unique touches like arcade-style video games and and a pinball machine to help pass the time, according to Julie Bos and Yelp reviews.

“We just try to give them the best product that we can,” she said. “We have been in the community a long long time, so we know a lot of our customers and that’s what they’ve come to expect.”

The couple owns three other laundromats, in Union City, Newark, and Pleasanton. One of their daughters and her husband were going to take over the businesses soon. Instead, they’ve started an online fundraiser to help defray costs from the fire.

“We had retirement plans, but now that’s all on hold,” Julie Bos said.

The fire appears to have started in the rear of the laundromat, though exactly when and how is still unclear, Diaz said. There were some customers inside who got out safely, and no injuries were reported.

The fire destroyed the laundromat, and spread through the “common attic” of the building, Diaz said, resulting in significant damage to neighboring businesses, Din Ding Dumpling House, and Doan’s Hair & Spa.

All three businesses were deemed unsafe, and “redtagged” by the city later that day, Diaz said. The large Smart & Final store next to Launderland was not damaged, due to a firewall.

Scott Zhang, the owner of Din Ding Dumpling House, said he was shocked by the news of the fire.

His business, like so many others, had been through a rough year due to the pandemic, but was subsisting on takeout orders, and had recently resumed dine-in service. He recently completed a renovation that allowed customers to watch dumplings being made through a window.

“The business was getting a lot better, almost reaching back to the prepandemic period,” Zhang said. “But all of a sudden, it’s all gone.”

Din Ding opened in 2015, Zhang said, and business has grown each year. He opened a Union City location about two years ago, as well.

Denny Cao, whose parents Tammy and Doan run Doan’s Hair & Spa, said he went through a “whirlwind of emotions,” when he learned of the damage to their family business.

After coronavirus safety restrictions forced hair shops through a long year of closures, limited reopenings, and more closures during spikes of transmission, Cao said his family was “hopeful” about emerging from the worst of the pandemic, with customers returning to the shop.

But now, he feels “anger, sadness and confusion,” he said. His father, Doan, who immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam, started the shop in 1997 after working in several others to save up money.

“It’s almost like the American dream, it’s something they built that helped them thrive in America,” he said of the shop.

A message seeking comment from the plaza property manager, Cardoza Properties, was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.

The business owners said they are working with the property owners and insurance companies in the aftermath of the blaze, but it’s too early to tell how long it may take to repair the businesses.

All of them plan to reopen as soon as they can, they said.

“We’ll get through it together,” Julie Bos said.

“We will be back soon,” Zhang said. “We won’t leave.”