Popular ROASTe Coffee Roaster Weathers Fire

Source: Ferndale115

Chazzano owner Frank Lanzkron-Tamarazo has probably heard every heat and fire related coffee joke possible, but he’s happy to have survived a fire in his roaster café without much damage. Roaster of a popular ROASTe coffee, Frank has also discovered the downside of “hot” sales levels.

As told by reporter Crystal A. Proxmire, last Thursday night, while roasting coffee at Chazzano, a fire broke out in the roaster. Unable to put it out with his own fire extinguisher, he put in an emergency call to the fire department. They were successful in putting out the fire. Thankfully, most of the damage was caused by smoke and a cleaning of the shop allowed it to open on Sunday morning.

Apparently the fire was caused by a larger than normal volume of roasting, such that the roaster wasn’t cleaned of chaff as often as normal. The buildup of this chaff is what caught on fire, and luckily the fire didn’t spread beyond the roaster. Even so, the roaster wasn’t damaged and Lanzkron-Tamarazo was able to resume roasting Saturday night.

Chazzano’s Facebook page tells the rest of the story. With volunteer cleaning help Saturday night, and the roasting of 60 pounds of beans, the café was ready to open on Sunday morning.

The last Facebook posting on Monday revealed a happy and relieved Lanzkron-Tamarazo, who wrote, “Thank you to all who visited us today on our first day back after the fire. I can't yet use any of the jokes about ‘Fire Sale’, ‘Fire roasted’, 'This coffee has smoky notes’, or any other clever fire-like blends. I will, but not yet. Yet, I'm happy that we're doing so well that we can laugh at the situation.”