For 17 years, the Marietta Diner has been feeding hungry Cobb Countians 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Until Tuesday, when a small fire in the kitchen forced the eatery to close for the first time since the gleaming, steel restaurant opened in the mid-90s on Cobb Parkway.
“Snowstorms, tornadoes, Christmas, Thanksgiving, we’re always open,” owner Gus Tselios told the AJC. “We don’t even have a lock on the door.”
Tselios said that a crew contracted to clean the kitchen’s exhaust hoods once a month was doing just that around 5 a.m. Tuesday.
“They forgot to shut off one of the fan motors,” Tselios said. When the water hit the live electrical wires, sparks flew and a small fire started, he said.
Tselios brought in a contractor to clean up the minor fire damage in the kitchen and said the restaurant would be open in time for Tuesday’s lunch rush.
“A lot of groups meet here every morning for breakfast,” he said. “I told them, ‘we can’t cook right now, but we’ll give you free coffee and muffins.’”
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