(R. R. Branstrom/Daily Press photo) Firefighters are shown after extinguishing a blaze at the Stonehouse restaurant in Escanaba Saturday. The building was destroyed.

ESCANABA — At the site where the Stonehouse restaurant had proudly served Escanaba for decades, sheaths of ice coated the helmets of firefighters.

Fed by powerful, steady streams from hoses still trained on the smoldering remains of the restaurant, chunks of snow like miniature icebergs flowed down Lincoln Road. The long-standing and much-loved restaurant at the southeast corner of Escanaba’s two main streets was no more.

The building was destroyed by fire.

This was late morning Saturday, and the intersection of Ludington Street and Lincoln Road was blocked off in all directions. A fire had broken out on the southern side of the Stonehouse hours earlier — one of the business owners, John Romps, Jr., said he had been driving toward his daughter’s house when he saw smoke about 5:45 a.m. Escanaba Public Safety Director John Gudwer said his department got the call just before 6 a.m.

Officers found heavy smoke coming from the building when they tried to enter, according to a news release.

“We couldn’t get to the fire because the floor was compromised,” Gudwer said, referring to an area near the main entrance on the south side of the building that had a basement beneath it. “It collapsed just as the officers opened the door.”

No one was believed to have been inside the building when the incident began, Gudwer said. One firefighter was taken to the emergency room.

Responders from Escanaba Public Safety, Ford River Township, the Delta County Sheriff Department, Escanaba Township and Michigan State Police were all on site at 10:30 a.m. as crews continued to douse the smoking heaps of rubble. A Brunette and Son truck waited on one side of the parking lot while heavy equipment crunched through what remained of the restaurant and bar.

With the shock of the loss of a local landmark, an onlooker could almost forget the bitter cold until seeing the black gear of a Ford River firefighter encrusted with white ice.

Temperatures were in the low- to mid-teens when firefighters battled the blaze

A restaurant has stood at 2223 Ludington St. since at least 1949. Long ago, it was Ted’s. The Romps purchased the place in 1982 and have held it since. The building owners are John Romps Sr. and Starr Romps, while their sons, John and Matthew, ran the business of the Stonehouse. It’s unclear what will happen from here.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

As an excavator turned over pieces of wall, shelving and more Saturday morning, smoke kept rising from the ruins and hoses from the fire trucks kept blasting the smoldering mess.

Maintaining humor among a group of distressed witnesses, John Romps Jr. said, “Well, whatever food was in there is definitely cooked.”

Escanaba Public Safety was assisted by the Ford River Fire Department, Escanaba Township Fire Department, Rampart EMS, Michigan State Police, Delta County Sheriff’s Department, DTE, Escanaba Pubic Works Department, Escanaba Electric Department, Escanaba Water Department, Delta County Central Dispatch, Ed Brunette Construction and the Red Cross.

Escanaba Public Safety would like to thank Citgo gas, Circle K, Wendy’s, Gladstone Deli, Elmer’s County Market and any other business that donated food and warm beverages to firefighters on site.

R. R. Branstrom can be reached at 906-786-2021 or rbranstrom@dailypress.net.