HARRISVILLE -- Hungry customers wait to be seated as new flat-screens TVs air the latest game at Javier's Mexican Food restaurant at the intersection of U.S. 89 and Wall Avenue.
The large front windows still frame the mountains and most of the tables and chairs remain the same, but the walls have a new coat of paint and the kitchen has shiny new equipment.
A year after a fire gutted the inside of Javier's Mexican Food, 755 N. Harrisville Road, the restaurant is open again and as busy as ever.
"We're so happy," owner Javier Chavez said. "It's like a dream."
About 4 a.m. on Jan. 16, 2011, Chavez received a call that smoke was coming from the roof of one of his restaurants.
No one was in the building at the time, but it is believed that the fire started in the kitchen. Chavez said the actual cause remains unknown.
Fire crews put out the blaze, which left the walls charred black. Outside, Chavez said he and his employees wept with sadness. Many of the staff worried that the fire would cost them their job, something that Chavez tried hard to avoid.
"No one was out of work," Chavez said.
He spread the employees to his other restaurant locations around the Top of Utah.
After the repairs were complete, he brought back all of the employees back.
"They all returned and we got a few more," Chavez said.
Head waitress Maria R. Diaz is glad to be back in the Harrisville restaurant.
She started working for Chavez in 1998 and was a fixture at the location.
"I've always been here," Diaz said. "I started here, so it's nice to return to this place."
After the fire, she went to work at the Javier's at 7th Street and Washington Boulevard.
Customers expressed concern for her well-being and asked her when the restaurant would reopen.
However, the move also meant fewer hours for her and the other Harrisville employees.
"But we're lucky," Diaz said, "we got through it."
For awhile, however, Chavez thought about giving up on the location.
After some prodding by his customers and his employees, he got to work fixing the restaurant and the doors reopened on Nov. 21.
"Our customers really motivated us," Chavez said from his office, a converted motel room.
Chavez owns the motel that sits behind the restaurant and which serves as the headquarters of the entire Javier's chain. The fire did not spread to the motel.
"The good thing is that it didn't affect this," Chavez said, "only the restaurant."
The Harrisville location first opened about 19 years ago, and is the second restaurant in the chain. The building itself is even older.
Since Chavez had no plans to remodel the old building, he had to quickly figure out how he wanted the inside to look after repairs.
Chavez worked with the Wadman Corporation to repair the inside of the building. Together, they changed the layout and filled the kitchen with new appliances, including a new tortilla maker.
"It's small, but practical," Chavez said. "For me, it's more homey."
Last February, Chavez celebrated the 20th anniversary of when he took over a restaurant on 29th Street and Wall Avenue, which started the Javier's Mexican Food chain. The latest addition is a restaurant that opened last year in Farmington.
"Everything we have is because of the customers. Thanks to them, we are open again."
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