Popular seafood grill in Macon temporarily closed after fire. When will it reopen?

A Macon restaurant staple expects to reopen just days after a fire destroyed some of its property.

A fire abruptly started behind Jim Shaw’s Seafood Grill at 3040 Vineville Avenue around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, according to Chris Barroso, the general manager. While the restaurant is closed for now, staff expect it to reopen Thursday.

“We were just inside the restaurant, normal Saturday, really busy, and started smelling something burning,” Barroso said. “One of my employees looked out the door and saw the sheds had fire coming out.”

Two storage sheds, which held paper products and cleaning solutions like bleach and floor cleaner, were destroyed.

“Once it started, my employees started clearing everybody out,” Barroso said.

Barroso and two other employees sprayed fire extinguishers and water hoses before the Bibb County Fire Department arrived, he said.

“The firefighters arrived fast enough to stop the fire, keep it contained and keep the building from getting burned,” Barroso said.

A walk-in cooler separated the sheds from Jim Shaw’s main building by around 10 feet, which Barroso believes acted as a barrier to the restaurant.

The cooler and sheds will likely be replaced, and the restaurant will temporarily use a portable cooler unit.

The restaurant’s main building did not have physical damage, but smoke and debris filled its interior.

“By the time the fire was put out, there was smoke through the whole restaurant,” Barroso said.

ServiceMaster Restore, a disaster recovery company, was scheduled to deep clean the restaurant’s interior due to smoke damage Tuesday. Odor-eating machines were scrubbing the air Monday.

Staff and patrons were safe.

Barroso said he learned how to quickly recover from disasters after a flood in 2022 burst a water line at the restaurant.

“I’m getting good at this,” he said, laughing. “Seven days after the flood happened, I was reopened.”

The cause of the fire was still unclear and under investigation Monday afternoon.

This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 1:08 PM.