A South Minneapolis pizza restaurant is working through a CBS Minnesota-reported Jakeeno’s Pizza fire recovery, with the community raising $21,000 across 291 donations to keep staff paid while the building is repaired.
How the fire unfolded
In the early morning hours of 11 July, firefighters were called to the corner of Chicago Avenue and 36th Street in South Minneapolis, where smoke was pouring from the roof of Jakeeno’s Pizza. Crews discovered an active fire burning beneath the roof membrane and had to open multiple sections of the roof to extinguish it.
The restaurant was closed and empty when the fire broke out, which spared any risk to life. Even so, the damage inside was substantial. According to CBS Minnesota, cellulose and insulation covered the floor throughout the interior following the blaze, giving a concrete sense of the clean-up facing the owners before any reconstruction work can begin.
Current co-owner Amy Keegan said the business is fortunate to have insurance cover, but the process is taking time. ‘Thankfully, we’re very well insured and we’re just kind of waiting for that process to happen,’ she said. ‘We’re just waiting on the insurance claim to come through. They’re doing their due diligence on their end.’
Staff wages and the Jakeeno’s Pizza fire recovery fund
While the insurance process plays out, Jakeeno’s doors are shut and the staff (cooks, wait staff and bartenders) are without work. Local hospitality entrepreneur Bob Tinsley set up a GoFundMe campaign specifically to cover their wages during the closure. The response has been swift: 291 donors have contributed a combined $21,000 to the fund.
Co-owner Patty Keegan described the motivation clearly. ‘We want them back; we appreciate them. We feel terrible that they lost their jobs from this and so we’re just trying to keep everybody whole,’ she told CBS News.
For those who want to support the restaurant beyond the GoFundMe, Jakeeno’s branded pasta sauce and frozen pizzas are available through local grocery stores and co-ops, offering another practical way to keep revenue flowing during the rebuild.
Five decades of surviving setbacks
Jakeeno’s has kept its doors open for roughly half a century, and the fire is the latest in a string of pressures the restaurant has weathered. The business survived the Great Recession, then the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then the civil unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd, which took place just two blocks from the restaurant.
None of those chapters closed Jakeeno’s permanently, and the owners are not treating this one differently. The combination of solid insurance cover and a fundraising effort that has already cleared $21,000 provides a more stable foundation than many small independent restaurants can count on after a serious structural fire. The harder work, clearing the debris, managing the insurance assessment, and carrying out the actual rebuild, still lies ahead, and the timeline will depend on how quickly the claims process moves.
In the meantime, Minneapolis residents have already made the community’s position clear. The donations, and the people behind them, are betting that Jakeeno’s will be serving pies on Chicago Avenue again before long.
