Coffee & Cream owner vows to rebuild
NORTH SMITHFIELD – Jonathan Branchaud grew up in the kitchen of Coffee & Cream Restaurant, a popular breakfast spot he and his father, Normand Branchaud, established in 1991.
While he ran the kitchen as a teenager, the restaurant became successful enough to spin off a drive-through companion, Coffee & Cream Mug, which his mother ran on nearby Eddie Dowling Highway.
When she died after running the “Mug” for 18 years, Branchaud buried his grief in his work.
“I put my head in the restaurant,” he said. “It’s my livelihood.”
It wasn’t unusual to see a line of customers waiting to get in on weekend mornings – the kind of success Branchaud says is built on consistently good food. But all that literally went up in smoke when a three-alarm fire of still-undetermined origin gutted the restaurant during the wee hours of Dec. 16.
Branchaud, 34, has vowed to rebuild. The question is when. “We’ve already got the ball rolling,” said Branchaud, but the timing is complicated because the restaurant and the real estate in which it operates are owned by two different entities.
Branchaud said he and his father owned “everything
from the walls in,” including equipment and furnishings. Greenville Road Development owns the real estate.
Branchaud said he is already meeting with insurance adjusters as he seeks to replace his losses. Greenville Road Development – his landlord – must come to similar terms with its own insurance company before work to rebuild the restaurant can get under way.
Efforts to reach Greenville Road Development were not successful, but Branchaud said he has spoken to his landlord and he’s assured him that he’ll do everything possible to enable Coffee & Cream to rebuild at the same location.
“He was very sincere with me, saying we will be back in action, we’ll get our business back,” said Branchaud. “He was assuring me everything will be alright.”
Shortly after the fire was extinguished, members of the North Smithfield Fire Department said the blaze apparently started outside the building and they could not rule out the possibility that it had been intentionally set. Yesterday, however, Fire Chief Joel Jillson and Deputy Chief State Fire Marshal John Dean both referred questions on the status of the investigation into the cause of the fire to the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms regional field office in Boston.
Jillson and Dean said local and state authorities were involved in a joint investigation with the federal agency, but the ATF is in charge.
“The cause of the fire at this time remains undetermined and the investigation is ongoing,” said ATF spokesman Matthew O’Shaughnessy.
Four days before the fire at Coffee & Cream, a fire at the New Life Worship Center caused significant damage to the Christian church, located near the I-295 ramp on the Douglas Turnpike in Smithfield, about five miles from the restaurant. Like the Coffee & Cream fire, the church blaze also started on the exterior of the building.
The church fire was later deemed to have been a case of arson and ATF is offering a reward of $5,000 for information leading to the identification and arrest of the perpetrator.
O’Shaughnessy declined to speculate on the cause of the Coffee & Cream fire or a possible connection to the incident at the New Life Worship Center. But he said it’s not unusual for the ATF to take a lead role in investigating business fires because they potentially affect interstate commerce and AFT investigators bring a level of expertise to such probes that may be useful to state and local colleagues.
The restaurant fire was discovered by a man pumping gas at the CT Plus service station, across the street, shortly after 3 last Friday morning, and went to three alarms before firefighters had it under control. In addition to North Smithfield, firefighting crews from neighboring Woonsocket, Burrillville, Blackstone, Lincoln, Cumberland and Smithfield pitched in to battle the inferno.
While the damage to the restaurant was extensive – another landmark eatery that sits shoulder-to-shoulder with Coffee & Cream was unscathed. That restaurant, The Beef Barn, is also run by members of the Branchaud family.
Reached at the second Beef Barn location, in Bellingham, owner Marc Branchaud said the North Smithfield Beef Barn was closed for just one day after the fire at the Coffee & Cream. There was no structural damage to the building at all, he said.
“We still have a little smell in there and we still have fans working on it,” he said. “It’s dissipating a little more every day.”