Two Businesses Destroyed By Nadi Fires

Two business owners in Namaka, Nadi, are now left puzzled after losing everything in a fire that occurred between the hours of 1am and 2am yesterday.

Chill Zone Café and Kava Bar owners, Rishal Chandra and wife, Ashwini Prasad, said the fire was not known to them until they received a call at around 2am yesterday from nearby residents alerting them about the blaze.

Mr Chandra said his last day at the restaurant was on Saturday night due to the closure of the business on Sunday.

He has been operating an all-in-one restaurant, billiard section and kava bar for more than one year now.

“We have no idea what happened, we received a call at 2am from the neighbours that the restaurant was on fire,” he said.

“This business was among our other businesses that we have, but the Chill Zone Café and Kava Bar was one of our biggest investments.”

Mr Chandra said he lost more than $100,000 in the fire.

“We cannot assume anything at the moment so we are just waiting for the official reports from the National Fire Authority (NFA) and Police,” he added.

“We haven’t decided yet on the next step we will take from here.”

The second business that burned down belonged to Hari Lal, who runs the Westfield Garden Solutions shelter about one kilometre away from the Chill Zone Café and Kava Bar.

The salesman, Ajay Kumar said the business lost close to $70,000 in the fire.

“We lost our whole shelter and vegetable seeds and manure amongst our other products,” he said.

“The fire happened around 2am.”

He said the business has been running for about one year now.

“We took a bank loan to construct this and we are still paying off the loan. Now with this fire we have a burden on us with the worry of paying our loan back and starting the business again,” he added.

A Police team was at the burnt Chill Zone Café and Kava Bar yesterday conducting investigations.

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