Update on reopening plans for Ladybird, Jefferson’s, Biggs on Mass following fires; a guess on when Menards will open

A Lawrence fireman comes out of a smoke-filled Biggs on Mass, 719 Massachusetts St., around 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, 2015.

If anything good comes out of the fires that have temporarily closed three downtown restaurants, it is that the pairing of doughnuts and bourbon may finally get its due. I have updates on reopening plans for the three eateries — Jefferson’s, Biggs on Mass, and Ladybird Diner — and yes, one of them really does involve doughnuts. (Also known in my house as the Breakfast of 18th Place. We’re fine with being middle of the pack if it means we can skip the Wheaties and instead have a chocolate glaze every morning.)

“I tell people that several years from now people are going to look back on the fire at Biggs, and say ‘that was the best thing that ever happened to doughnuts in Lawrence,'” said Meg Heriford, an owner of Ladybird Diner at 721 Massachusetts St.

If you remember, on March 3 a fire started in the smoking pit area of Biggs on Mass, and ever since that barbecue restaurant and the adjacent Ladybird Diner have been closed while crews work on removing smoke damage and replacing interior furnishings.

Heriford hopes to have Ladybird reopened sometime this summer. “I just don’t know if it is going to be the beginning of summer or near the end,” she said.

In the meantime Heriford has rented a commercial kitchen in town to work on new recipes for artisan doughnuts, which she said will be a larger part of the business when the diner reopens. Heriford said she recently was experimenting with a salted caramel popcorn doughnut with bourbon icing, another one that featured mango and chiles, and one that had espresso icing with cornflakes and bacon. Given the circumstances, I think one certainly should be the Fire in the Hole Doughnut, my own personal creation where you have the doughnut of your choice, while sitting in the hole is a round ball of Tabasco infused dough fried in Tabasco sauce. (Well, maybe there is a reason why I’m not yet on The Food Network, and perhaps even a reason why Bobby Flay sought that restraining order.)

Regardless, Heriford said work is continuing on the building rehabilitation, and she said it is much more extensive than she ever thought.

“The extent of the smoke damage caught us all off guard,” Heriford said. “I walked in after the fire and saw that we didn’t have any structural damage. We had a basement full of water, but I thought we would have everything cleaned up in a couple of days.”

Instead, Heriford has found that removing the smoke odor from the restaurant is complicated. The entire ceiling had to be removed, and new duct work also is required. Once the smoke issue is taken care of, there is a lot of work for the restaurant to reopen. Furnishings will have to be reinstalled, and a staff will have to be hired and trained again, Heriford said.

Heriford is trying to keep the Ladybird in the Lawrence food scene in the interim by selling pie from her sidewalk dining area every couple of weeks. She also has reached a deal where The Bourgeois Pig, 6 E. Ninth St., is selling Ladybird pies on the weekend.

Next door at Biggs on Mass, the latest plans are for the barbecue restaurant to reopen sometime in June. Owner Doug Holiday said he’s received a building permit from city officials, and work is underway to rebuild the back area of the building where the fire started. A major part of the renovation work at Biggs involves replacing all the electrical panels in the building, which were damaged by the water.

“There are no winners in this deal,” Holiday said. “Well, maybe the cleaning companies.”

A Lawrence fireman comes out of a smoke-filled Biggs on Mass, 719 Massachusetts St., around 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, 2015.

Jefferson’s, 743 Massachusetts St., is the third business that is closed due to fire damage. Fire struck that building on Jan. 15, but it appears it may still have the most work to do to reopen.

Brandon Graham, an owner of Jefferson’s, told me that he hopes to reopen sometime in August, but said it is still too early to know whether that timetable is feasible.

“It is a complete remodel at this point,” Graham said.

Graham said the rebuilding process was complicated by the fact he did not have access to the building for a full month after the fire. Insurance officials were still investigating the cause of the fire. Graham said he still doesn’t know exactly what happened. An old air make-up unit on the roof played a role in the fire, but Graham said a transformer near the building also blew up near the time of the fire. Graham said he’s not yet learned whether a surge from the transformer caused a problem in the rooftop unit, or if something else occurred that caused the fire and the transformer problems.

Firefighters respond to heavy smoke and reports of fire at Jeffersons, 8th and Massachusetts streets, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015.

At this point, Graham is focused on getting the restaurant reopened. He said the restaurant — which was known for burgers, wings and other sports bar fare — will come back with much of the same look and feel. One thing that won’t be back, though, are the thousands of decorated dollar bills that adorned the walls of the restaurant.

“They were ruined,” Graham said. “Everything stunk. We took them down and took them to the bank.”

How many were there? Well, you’ll get a chance to guess that. The restaurant plans to hold a contest where patrons guess how many dollar bills were on the wall. The winner will receive free wings for a year. Graham said the restaurant will restart the tradition where patrons can decorate a dollar and have it posted on the wall.

photo by: Nick Krug

Kyler Carpenter, Topeka, steadies his son, Trevor, 8, as he secures a decorated dollar bill to the ceiling of Jefferson's Restaurant, 743 Mass., during the lunch rush Wednesday. Jayhawk fans planning to watch Saturday's Kansas-Missouri football game will stake their claims to seats at their favorite local bars and restaurants.

photo by: Nick Krug

A decorated dollar bill at Jefferson's Restaurant.

Graham said he’s optimistic the crowds will return to the restaurant once it reopens.

“We get quite a few questions about when we are going to reopen,” Graham said. “That makes us feel good that people in the community care about what is going on with us. I feel for our neighbors up the street who are going through it too. It is a difficult thing to deal with.”

In other news and notes from around town:

• High on the list of questions I receive — somewhere near the ones about tongue ointments for Tabasco burns — is: When is Menards going to open?

Well, I’ve received no information from Menards about its Lawrence opening date. But I get the question enough that I thought I should remind you what I’ve previously reported. Menards officials during the planning process told me it takes about nine to 10 months to build a Menards store. The company received a building permit from the city in September. I think that means there is a good chance the store could be open by the time the next school year starts in late August. Menards and Sprouts, the grocery store near Wakarusa and Overland drives, both started construction near the same time. Sprouts is set to open on July 1, although that building is significantly smaller than Menards.

If you have been near the 31st and Iowa area lately, perhaps you have gotten a sense of how big Menards is going to be, especially in comparison to the Home Depot that is next door. According to information filed with the city, Menards will have about 250,000 square feet of space under roof. That’s compared to about 94,000 square feet for Home Depot. Plus, Menards will have an approximately 150,000-square-foot outdoor lumber yard.

Home Depot certainly didn’t want to have such a small store in Lawrence, but that is all they could get approved by city commissioners in the early 2000s. I will not be surprise if Home Depot files plans for an expansion in Lawrence. I have no inside information on that, but I have noted that Home Depot has sought something called a zoning certification from the city. That’s just a piece of paperwork that confirms what the zoning is for a particular piece of property. Sometimes it is just for a lender or tax purposes, but other times it is the first step in a company putting together plans to build on a piece of property. It will be interesting to see how big of a home improvement battle we have at 31st and Iowa.

• Town Talk will be off tomorrow. Contrary to the rumors, I will not be recovering from doughnut experimentation. I will be parking cars at the Lawrence Swap Meet at the Douglas County Fairgrounds as part of a fundraiser for my kids’ 4-H club.