RootBeer Stand served community during the fire

By Cheyenne Thomas and Valorie Brecht Last Thursday night, everyone was in shock to see such longstanding structures in the city of Loyal disintegrate into ruins. In the midst of the shock, one business found a way to help out and serve as a hub.

It all started around 7:39 p.m. “We had a customer standing in line and they said, ‘Oh, my gosh! Look at the flames!’ We saw the flames even before we heard a fire whistle. We were pretty busy that night,” said Jenni Brock, who owns The RootBeer Stand in Loyal, along with her husband, Greg. “My husband was going to call 911, but at that point we saw two members of the fire department drive down the street in their own cars and we knew they were on it. There was nothing that we could really do; everybody just kind of stood there in astonishment watching it all happen.”

The Brocks’ establishment ended up being a gathering spot for the community as the night unfolded.

“Early on, there were some people who were on the north end of Main Street, but the police told everyone to get back to The Root Beer Stand and that's where everyone ended up gathering to watch everything,” Jenni continued.

Throughout the night, there were anywhere between 25 to 30 people at the restaurant at any given time, with many people coming and going throughout the night. The number of people started to die down around 12:30 a.m. as the fire started to get under control. The Brocks decided to make food to sustain the weary firefighters.

“We had the fryers still going around 9 p.m. At that point with the fire still going, we realized that this wasn’t good. Around 12:30 to 12:45 my husband said, ‘Yeah, let’s fire up the grill.’ We had asked before that if there was anything that we could do, to let us know what to do. It became clear as they worked through the night that they could use some food and we did what we could to provide them that. We just knew that this was something we had to do. The community has been so generous to us, this was the least we could do to give back.

“I went home around 12:30 because I had to make sure the kids would be ready for school the next day, but my husband stayed out there until around 4:30 that morning. He had to get everything cleaned up after using everything. He’s an amazing person and didn’t think twice about it.”

Jenni also made it clear that they weren’t the only helpers; it truly was a group effort of everyone giving what they could to make a terrible situation just a little bit better.

“The community has been amazing, and not even just Loyal, but all our local communities. Just everyone coming over and having this whole level of compassion to those who lost their homes is very encouraging. The whole thing was just surreal.”

VALORIE BRECHT/STAFF PHOTO