Paulo and Bill Italian Restaurant on Midland Drive in Shawnee suffered damage due to a fire on Jan. 2. Started by a cigarette on Monday, Jan. 3. A customer threw a cigarette into some mulch catching the wall of the entrance on fire.

The restaurant was closed for 10 days, and the exact amount of damage isn’t known yet, but it’s estimated to be around $100,000. Jim and Cathy Marks have been owned the restaurant since 2003 and were excited when the rebuilding was finished and they got to reopen.

“Any time your employees are out of work in this economy is not a good thing,” Cathy said.

Putting employees out of work was difficult, but they are thankful it came in January.

“January is normally a slow month so we were thankful we weren’t hurting our employees too much,” Marks said.

Sophomore Jillian Mullin and her family eat at Paulo and Bill every Sunday.

“I’ve been going to Paulo and Bill every week since they opened, I guess you could say I’m a regular customer,” Mullin said.

Shocked to see the damage, Mullin’s family couldn’t wait until the repairs were finished.

“At first when I heard about the fire from my dad I didn’t believe it, only after reading about it on four websites and driving by to see the physical damage, did I have to just accept it,” Mullin said.

Mullin was looking forward to their reopening.

“It was really devastating until I realized that it wasn’t gone forever, but was luckily something that would be an easy recovery,” Mullin said.

With only being closed for 10 days, the owners and Mullin hope not too much business was lost.

“It’s hard to say how much business we lost, hopefully we can move forward,” Marks said.

Mullin doesn’t think they will have any problem.

“I don’t think they will have any trouble making up for the 10 days of lost business. They have so many people and families like mine that really care about them and want them to do well,” Mullin said.

Marks was very pleased with the support of the community.

“Customers have been very supportive calling in and waiting to see when we will reopen,” Marks said.

Letting people know they are reopened is the main goal for now.

“We are focusing on marketing so people know we’re open again,” Marks said.

Mullin was eager to get back to their restaurant after they reopened.

“It hardly affected my tradition at all,” Mullin said. “The recovery only took 10 days and we were able to return there again the day after they opened back up.”