Hoagies on Main employee Anthony Ball said he arrived at the sandwich shop at 601 W. Main St. in Palmyra early Friday morning to find smoke billowing out of the vent in the back of the building.
He said he ran next door to get Dylan Hummel, the owner’s son, and together they tried to get into the building.
“By the time we unlocked the door it was just black,” he said Friday afternoon. “You couldn’t even see an inch in front of you. The smoke came like it was a miniature tornado — just all black coming right out.”
Dispatchers received the call around 12:41 a.m., and multiple departments raced to the scene.
Palmyra fire chief Dave Dugan said fire companies including Cornwall Township, Hershey, Annville-Cleona, Fort Indiantown Gap and Northern Lebanon helped put out the fire.
He said they contained the blaze within about 45 minutes and completely sorted out the incident in about three hours.
No firefighters or Hoagies on Main employees were injured.
The other businesses in the building have some smoke and water damage, but most of the damage was contained to the sandwich shop, according to Dugan.
The fire’s cause was ruled undetermined.
Ball said he barely got any sleep throughout the night and was still at the shop to try to sort through the wreckage and remove anything salvageable.
“I’m more just here to help the family,” he said, shaking his head. “I know for Michelle [Anderson] this was her dream, and for it to just go up in flames one night.”
The shop’s Facebook page announced the fire and said they “lost everything” in the blaze.
“We just want everyone to know that we loved the 8 years we were able to share with this beautiful community,” Hoagies on Main posted on Facebook. “You all watched our little ones grow, shared our memories and we can never say thank you enough.”
The account later posted the business’s fire insurance had lapsed.
A GoFundMe page is available online.
“I just need people to understand that we’re human and we just want to keep going,” owner Michelle Anderson told WGAL in an interview. “We want to move forward and hopefully rebuild and be back bigger and better.”
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