ROANOKE, Va. – Donnie D’s Bagels’ Roanoke location aims to reopen by August after a fire in May forced the popular bagel shop to temporarily close its doors.
Owners Donnie and Ashley DeGeorgis have been restoring the shop, describing a challenging cleanup process.
“They soda blasted the concrete structure, and then they came back with some primer to paint over it to alleviate some of that smoke smell,” said Donnie DeGeorgis.
The fire started in a back corner of the shop, which caused significant damage.
“It was really scary,” said Ashley DeGeorgis.
“I think the hardest thing for me was coming back in the first couple of days and being overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that was burnt,” said Donnie.
In the meantime, they are operating out of their Daleville location.
Despite the setback, the DeGeorgises are hopeful.
“Everybody’s goals are to target that first week of August,” said Donnie.
The owners are also looking forward to a second reopening.
“I’m very humbled by the fact that we can have a second reopening. A lot of businesses aren’t able to do that, especially in a quick amount of time. The fire was May 23rd, and today is July 4th, and we’re hoping to be open next month, and a lot of people can’t say that,” said Ashley.
Most of their staff have been working at the Daleville location since the fire, and the majority of the staff are expected to return when they reopen the Roanoke location in August.
“We had a really good team, and we had just built like really good relationships with all of our staff, so we are really excited to be back with all of them,” said Ashley.
When the shop burned down in May, the equipment they used to make the bagels was destroyed, forcing them to make biscuits, not bagels, at their Daleville location. However, the owners say they purchased new equipment, so you can expect those bagels soon. They also said they’ll keep the biscuits as well.
“Maybe not as many as we are right now, but we’ve found that people like them,” said Donnie.
“We don’t know if we can get rid of them,” said Ashley.
Community support has been a major help to the owners.
“I think it’s really humbling,” Donnie said.
The DeGeorgises said it’s been great having people donate money and continue to support their business at the Daleville location.
“We had the community here show up when we got here seven months ago, and I kind of just could feel that we would have that love around us because we were having it without even having a disaster,” said Ashley.
Supporters can contribute to Donnie D’s Bagels and Deli via their GoFundMe page.