“…the preliminary investigation indicates the fire might have started with a motor on top of a walk in cooler but this is still under 
investigation…the outside structure is still standing but the bar fell into the basement and the dining room was destroyed by smoke damage…”
The Ridgewod Restaurant was severely damaged in an early morning fire, police said. Firefighters and police were called to the restaurant on Brooklyn Stanhope Road at 2:23 a.m. on Saturday by the owners, who said that they had left the business after closing to go out and when they returned they found smoke cinside, according to Lt. Thomas Kmetz, a police department spokesman.
Police arrived to find kitchen door was hot to the touch and they could heard popping noises coming from inside, Kmetz said. The fire department arrived on the scene and found that there was smoke coming out of every possible area of the building that it could get out of, Kmetz said.
Firefighters extinguished the fire but the middle floor where the bar used to be collapsed into the basement and the dining room was destroyed by smoke damage, Kmetz said.
The Hopatcong, Roxbury, Netcong, Mount Arlington and Stanhope fire departments all responded to the blaze. The restaurant specializes in Portugese and Italian cuisine.
