ORLANDO, Fla. – The charred remains of a stove at an Orlando cafe sit outside after a Christmas Eve fire torched it.
“The staff called and I said, ‘Take a seat, sit down, take a breath.’ I asked, ‘What’s going on?’ Sure enough, it was the fire. They called the fire department, and they were here really quick,” said Alan Saunders, owner of College Park Cafe.
The fire marks yet another hardship for the restaurant, which nearly closed its doors over the summer. “We were running into financial difficulties. It got really bad, and we had to take out a loan to keep going. Then after the fire, we were talking and wondering if this was a higher power’s way of telling us it might be time to let it go,” Saunders shared.
College Park Cafe is one of the oldest diners in the Orlando area, dating back to the 1940s. The staff and the community didn’t want the beloved restaurant’s legacy to end. This inspired server Tiffany Vanderbilt to set up a GoFundMe page, which has raised more than $3,000 in just over a week.
“Bills don’t stop because the paycheck stops coming,” said Vanderbilt. “A lot of us were wondering how the owners were going to make it happen. I’m really thankful for the GoFundMe because it gave us money we didn’t have before.”
The funds will be used to pay the staff, while savings will go toward replacing the stove and renovating the café’s 70-year-old kitchen.
“The economy has been so bad. It’s like, why do we continue doing this? This is not a cash-generating machine. This is a passion project that we care about. After a while, you get tired and wonder if it’s worth staying open. But when the community reacts the way they did, I can’t let this place go. We’ve got to keep it open,” Saunders said.
The cafe is planning to reopen next Friday with a new name and logo, kicking off 2025 with a fresh start.
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