Kep's Place gutted by fire

When manager Elizabeth Barry closed Kep’s Place at 3 a.m. Sunday, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, she said.

“I closed like I always do,” Barry said Monday, as she stood in the parking lot of the bar and grill. “I turned off the lights and the games and locked the doors.”

But six hours later, she awoke to a phone call from the alarm company notifying her that the motion detector at the front of the building was going off.

Her fiance, Brock Heider, who is also a co-owner of the popular Washington establishment, got dressed and headed to 313 Muller Road. When he got to the bar at about 9:10 a.m., firefighters were battling a blaze that had already begun to destroy the building.

Over the next three hours, it burnt nearly to the ground. Investigators have not determined a cause or exact origin of the blaze, but Washington Police Chief Jim Kuchenbecker said it appears to be a total loss.

“It’s at least $600,000 worth of damage,” said Heider, who bought the bar along with his parents, aunt and uncle about a year-and-a-half ago.

Heider said the building’s motion detector went off at 8:57 a.m., but it did not indicate that there was a fire, only that there was movement inside the building. A passerby who saw smoke coming from the bar called 911 at 8:59 a.m.

The first Washington Fire Department personnel arrived on scene at 9:03 a.m. A short time later, the building became fully engulfed in flames, Kuchenbecker said. Crews from Northern Tazewell, Eureka, East Peoria and Germantown Hills fire departments responded soon after to help fight the blaze.

“It was contained by about noon or so,” said Randy Hurd, assistant chief of fire operations for the Washington Fire Department. “We couldn’t get to the interior of the building because of the heat, so we had to fight it from the exterior.”

The fire gutted most of the inside of the building and spread to the outdoor patio. However, an office in the basement that housed the building’s camera system remained mostly intact, Heider said. If salvaged, the recordings may offer investigators information about the cause of the blaze.

The Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office is assisting Washington authorities in investigating the fire.

“It think this will be a hard one,” said John Oliver, an arson investigator for the fire marshal’s office, as he looked at the wreckage Monday.

When manager Elizabeth Barry closed Kep’s Place at 3 a.m. Sunday, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, she said.

“I closed like I always do,” Barry said Monday, as she stood in the parking lot of the bar and grill. “I turned off the lights and the games and locked the doors.”

But six hours later, she awoke to a phone call from the alarm company notifying her that the motion detector at the front of the building was going off.

Her fiance, Brock Heider, who is also a co-owner of the popular Washington establishment, got dressed and headed to 313 Muller Road. When he got to the bar at about 9:10 a.m., firefighters were battling a blaze that had already begun to destroy the building.

Over the next three hours, it burnt nearly to the ground. Investigators have not determined a cause or exact origin of the blaze, but Washington Police Chief Jim Kuchenbecker said it appears to be a total loss.

“It’s at least $600,000 worth of damage,” said Heider, who bought the bar along with his parents, aunt and uncle about a year-and-a-half ago.

Heider said the building’s motion detector went off at 8:57 a.m., but it did not indicate that there was a fire, only that there was movement inside the building. A passerby who saw smoke coming from the bar called 911 at 8:59 a.m.

The first Washington Fire Department personnel arrived on scene at 9:03 a.m. A short time later, the building became fully engulfed in flames, Kuchenbecker said. Crews from Northern Tazewell, Eureka, East Peoria and Germantown Hills fire departments responded soon after to help fight the blaze.

“It was contained by about noon or so,” said Randy Hurd, assistant chief of fire operations for the Washington Fire Department. “We couldn’t get to the interior of the building because of the heat, so we had to fight it from the exterior.”

The fire gutted most of the inside of the building and spread to the outdoor patio. However, an office in the basement that housed the building’s camera system remained mostly intact, Heider said. If salvaged, the recordings may offer investigators information about the cause of the blaze.

The Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office is assisting Washington authorities in investigating the fire.

“It think this will be a hard one,” said John Oliver, an arson investigator for the fire marshal’s office, as he looked at the wreckage Monday.

Kuchenbecker said that though an arson investigator was called to the scene, he does not think the fire was started intentionally.

“Nothing leads us to be believe, at this point, that this is anything other than a tragic accident,” he said.

The bar’s owners said Kep’s Place will be back in one form or another.

“We’re looking at all our options,” Barry said. “We would like to rebuild and make it a bigger and better Kep’s.”

In the meantime, events scheduled at the bar and grill will be relocated. A July 18 benefit for the Washington to Peoria Run for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has been moved to Knickerbocker’s Bar & Grill, 80 Sunnyland Plaza in Sunnyland.

After Muller Road was reopened late Sunday afternoon, cars could be seen cruising by the building as people tried to catch a glimpse of what was left of the bar and grill, including a few warped bar stools and burnt patio furniture.

“I think it will be missed by the community until it comes back,” Barry said. “So many people loved coming here.”