Leone's Restaurant is destroyed by fire

MONMOUTH -- An early morning fire Sunday gutted Leone's restaurant on Main Street, a long time meeting place and convenience store.

Monmouth Fire Chief Andre Poulin said the alarm was called in about 5:20 a.m. by an employee coming to work who found noticed smoke coming from the back of the building. No one was in the building at the time of the blaze.

Firefighters from five towns responded to the alarm, but were unable to save the building.

Poulin said an investigator with the state Fire Marshal's Office helped determine that the blaze appeared to originate in old wiring in the back the building.

The one-and-one-half-story wooden structure was erected some time before 1880 and remodeled extensively over the years, Poulin said. "That remodeling caused us a lot of headaches in fighting the fire," he added.

Poulin said one firefighter sprained an ankle and was treated at the scene. "He's fine," he said.

Firefighters from Wales, Leeds, Greene and Winthrop assisted Monmouth at the scene. "We're a very close mutual aid group."

Poulin said the owners, Sandra and Jerry Nichols of Sabattus were in the process of selling the store.

On Sunday afternoon, the Nichols were at the restaurant boarding up their building.

The fire forced police to close the downtown portion of Main Street area to traffic for four hours and stopped trains from coming through town. Poulin said firefighters had hoses running across the tracks.

He estimated the damage at $250,000. "It's a very big loss for the town. There were a very big supporter of the public agencies in the area," Poulin said.

Paul Fox, retired Monmouth fire chief, saw flames when he arrived at Leone's about 5:30 a.m. "There was smoke coming right out of the back of the building."

Fox is one of a half dozen regular customers who meet at the store for a cup of coffee around 5:30 a.m. "It's a great place to go," he said. "Sometimes I go back for breakfast about 9:30 or so and a lot of us stop in in the afternoon and settle the family the town affairs and share the latest gossip."

Fox said when he moved to the town in 1957, the building was a residence, then it was home to the American Legion, then vacant for a period before being turned into a store.

For the early morning coffee and chat today, he said, "I don't know what we'll do."

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