Wally's burns

<span>EDITOR'S NOTE: To see more photos of the fire, visit the Herald Tribune's photos section. Video is also available on the newspaper's Facebook page.</span><strong> </strong>

<span>Six chairs, a table and a gumball machine appear to be all that was saved after a Thursday morning fire at Wally's in Chester.</span>

<span>Chester firefighters were paged out at 2:03 a.m. for the report of a possible structure fire inside a building filling with smoke at 967 State St. Six fire departments responded to the blaze, including Perryville, Ellis Grove and Steeleville.</span>

<span>The building is being declared a total loss.</span>

<span>"They had just come back into town and had seen smoke," said Chester Fire Chief Marty Bert of Owner/Chef Ryan Waltemate and his girlfriend and general manager, Clara Loucks. "We don't have any idea (what started it), but we know it started in the basement."</span>

<span>Waltemate and Loucks were returning from being out of town, while the couple's 4-year-old son, Brayden, was staying with relatives.</span>

<span>According to Loucks, Josh Berry - who rented one of the two apartments above the restaurant - was able to make it out of the building safely. Waltemate and Loucks occupied the other apartment.</span>

<span>"We couldn't get to the fire," Bert said. "There's only one way in to the back door to get to the basement. So we had to cut a hole in the front of the building by the front doors, cut a hole in the floor to let the heat out so we could try and go in and it was too hot."</span>

<span>Thursday's fire was the second one in a less than two years at Wally's, which was closed for nearly 10 months after a March 25, 2014 kitchen fire resulted in extensive smoke damage to the restaurant.</span>

<span>Once known as Wally's Original, the restaurant rebranded itself as "Wally's" after the 2014 fire with the motto of "Better than the Original." It successfully reopened in January and had hosted several fundraisers and special events.</span>

<span>According to Wally's Facebook page, staff was preparing to host singer Alexandra Kay on Sept. 18.</span>

<span>"It's sickening," Loucks said. "We put everything we had into this. Blood, sweat and tears and to have it turn out like this, this is a slap in the face."</span>

<span>In a bit of an ironic twist, Thursday's fire came seven days after the restaurant announced a menu change - to be implemented by mid-September - to a steak and chop house.</span>

<span>The 2014 fire came 10 days after Wally's had changed its menu.</span>

<span>"This is the first time in our relationship I've seen him cry like that," Loucks said of Waltemate. "His heart was in this place."</span>

<span>Firefighters were still battling hot spots at 7 a.m., while Loucks, Waltemate and other staff members of the restaurant watched nearby. All Chester fire units were back in service at 10:15 a.m.</span>

<span>"It's a well-established place in the community you hate to lose," Bert said. "We called the fire marshal (Bruce Dahlem) to help us and we'll call him again to help us find out what happened."</span>

<span>Portions of State and Swanwick streets were closed while crews battled the fire, which CFD Lieutenant Tim Crow estimated took between 300,000 to 400,000 gallons of water to extinguish.</span>

<span>"Perryville's aerial ladder was estimated at flowing between 600 and 800 gallons a minute," Crow said. "There were a total of eight tankers running, plus we were hooked to hydrants."</span>