A Plano patrol officer smelled smoke coming out of Zanata on East 15th street just before 7:00am Sunday. It quickly escalated to a two-alarm fire. When people around the historic district heard there was a fire here they feared the whole block might burn.
“It makes your heart sink,” said Mona Crider, an area business owner. “It just makes you sick to your stomach and you just think of all the history in downtown Plano and how many times it’s burned and you’re just like ‘please Lord, please save this building’.”
“Wanted to get down here as fast as we could,” said Jack Boggs who owns the building that burned. “Obviously we built this [business] from scratch. We know a lot about it, this area and we hate to hear anything like this.”
While putting out the fire more than two dozen firefighters also made sure it didn’t spread from one business to another to another.
“They tried an offensive attack which is an interior attack, they tried that for a short time but the fire was too far ahead of them so they went defensive, they pulled all the units out, put the ladder trucks up,” explained Plano Battalion Chief Kelly Helm.
Besides the significant damage to Zanata only one other business, a clothing shop next door suffered minor damage. Firefighters attribute that to the complete sprinkler system throughout the row of buildings. It activated as it was supposed to according to Helm.
With no one hurt and no buildings burned to the ground residents just lament the loss of a good place to eat.
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“It’s an awesome restaurant," said Debbie Holman. "We’ve actually eaten there twice in the past three weeks, the last time being last Saturday night. Great handmade pizzas, great wine bar, great steaks.”
"We love it and we're going to so miss it until they have time to build back because they're part of the vitality down here in downtown Plano," added Mona Crider.
