The guess is that there aren’t too many people who would be excited about seeing their Summer ‘vacation’ wrap up in early July, but when you’ve been waiting for months to get back to work, then the sentiment is probably going to flip to “I’m done with the sitting around, I want my restaurant back.”

Just ask Kara and Jason Ford about the wait.

The Fords and their business partners are owners of Oak 36, one of Midtown Savannah’s most popular restaurants. 

Back in February, they had a small fire in the building. Everyone thought they’d clean it up lickity split and be back to work in a couple of weeks. 

That was five months ago and they are still a few weeks out from a return.

The good news is, they can finally see the finish line.

“It just turned into a tangled mess.” Kara says.

Of course, any time insurance companies are involved, things will be tangled. In this case there were two. 

There was the Oak 36 insurance policy and there was the Twelve Oaks Shopping Center policy. Once they saw how extensive the damage actually was, they all knew it was going to take a minute to sort it out.

“The fire burned in the middle of the night.” She says. “It was unchecked for five hours. The fire walls did work and it stayed in the area.”

But the smoke, obviously, was everywhere.

“It got in the linens, the bottles, down to the straws.” Kara says. “Then above the ceiling tiles? It affected the spray foam, electrical.”

If it sounds like a huge clean up and mess, it was. I saw the Fords on St Patrick’s Day, roughly a month after the fire and they had no idea how long it would take to get back to work.

The good news is, the worst part of the mess is over. Everyone is now focused on the next five weeks instead of the last five months. 

The rebuild started a few weeks ago and Oak 36 is on its way back.  Many of the 40 employees they had in February will return, including their chef. Hiring has already begun.

“We’ve had so much down time, we’ve been working with chef on a new menu.” “People love our flatbreads, so we are going to do it different. We are going to have some new wing flavors.” Kara tells me.

They are also taking some time to address a few cosmetic issues they never had time to deal with after they opened in 2020. 

“We took a look at how we started.” Kara says. “We had no honeymoon phase. We were just drinking out of a firehose.”

Let’s just hope the ‘square peg/round hole’ desire to turn the space into a night club after 9 p.m. is on the chopping block. 

Karaoke and Fireball until 2 a.m. in a strip mall has Hilton Head Island written all over it.  I just don’t see it here. Not with the younger crowd, anyway.

Fortunately, there is a lot of good to look forward to at Twelve Oaks. Oak 36 was practically an instant hit with the Midtown lunch and happy hour crowds. That energy will very likely return immediately.

We should know by now that everything with construction and permitting is a moving target, but contractors expect to turn the space over to ownership around August 1st. The hope is to open shortly thereafter. So, my guess is…sometime in August.

Quick Bites

Belford’s Seafood and Steaks in City Market has also been closed for a few months due to a fire on April 25.  They are taking the opportunity to work on some renovations. No immediate timetable on their return. We’ll keep you posted.

Le Cafe Gourmet (Montgomery at Broughton) will reopen this week after a two week renovation. 

Big Bon Bodega will be hosting a Vegan pop up on Sunday, July 24 from 1pm-4pm. Vegan smash burgers, Nashville Hot Chicken and Sloppy Joes headline a Vegan comfort food menu. It’s a side project brought to you by Jay Langfelder and his girlfriend Amanda. 

Follow @swellburgersandfries on Instagram for more.

This article appears in Jul 20-26, 2022.