MAD Hospitality reopened The Sinclair in downtown Madison on July 22, less than two weeks after a devastating fire on July 13, which destroyed a majority of the building’s components.
The company’s restaurant, Betty Gene’s, suffered significant damage from the fire and reopened as a “pop-up concept” on July 24 at the Buggy Works event space.
Alongside Betty Gene’s, the adjoining Community Roots Market and Thomas Preston Realty suffered extensive damage from the flames, resulting in a total loss.
The Sinclair was the only office to survive the fire and ultimately suffered only smoke and water damage.
“Fortunately, we had about 12-inch-thick masonry walls that wrapped around three sides of The Sinclair, and that did an incredible job of protecting it,” said Preston Snyder, owner of MAD Hospitality and Thomas Preston Realty. “It was impacted by smoke and soot, and that required a significant amount of cleanup.”
According to Snyder, MAD Hospitality took action to clean up The Sinclair as quickly as possible following the fire.
He found it necessary, for various reasons, and credits the city of Madison for its efforts to help rebuild.
“We just felt like it was really important for a bunch of reasons to get this thing back open, and that it was the right thing to do for the businesses, for the community, for the employees, to get this thing up and running again,” Snyder said. “So, we jumped on it as fast as we could, put all the resources we could on it, got it cleaned up and back open, and the city was great to work with in that process.”
Following the devastation to Betty Gene’s, Snyder said he is happy to get the business back to the community. He named the restaurant in honor of his late mother, and describes the damage it took as “the toughest part.”
“Betty Jean’s Diner was a big loss for us, I think it had become a go-to place in a lot of ways in a short period,” Snyder said. “We hated to lose that, and there’s no replacing the family memorabilia and the original art, those kinds of things that were in there.”
Snyder noted that MAD Hospitality held a soft opening for Betty Gene’s, and they are “just starting to put the word out” about the restaurant’s return. The company plans to operate the menu during the day at the Buggy Works event space.
“With that happening, we’ve gotten our outlets back open again and our staff back to work,” Snyder said. “We’re hopeful that we get [the same] positive response to Betty Jean’s being back, that we’ve gotten with Sinclair.”
Snyder’s next priority in the rebuilding process is to figure out what to do with the Community Roots Market, his wife’s organic food store.
Despite the fire damage, he believes the market remains in a “structurally decent” condition.
“It took a harder hit than the Sinclair did, because it had some former window openings in it, so the masonry didn’t stop the fire entirely,” Snyder said.
“We’re exploring what the options are to at least get that portion of the building back in service and then come up with some kind of a public arrangement for a backup business.”
MAD Hospitality is at the beginning of a long process to rebuild the company’s losses, and Snyder believes the community has shown an “outpouring of support.”
He hopes to redevelop the damaged site shortly and is currently working on plans to do so.
“We’ve also met with the city planning folks to talk about possible approaches on [the building], and that’s beginning to take shape,” Snyder said. “It has been incredible and humbling and a little overwhelming to see how the community has turned out for us, and how much support we’re getting from folks who care about what’s happening here.”