(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The owner of a South Loop restaurant is telling a story of risk and recovery.
Investor Matthew O'Malley purchased the decommissioned limestone Chicago Fire Department firehouse at 14th and Michigan in 1999.
The Chicago Firehouse Restaurant opened in 2000, where it became a fixture in the rapidly gentrifying South Loop.
President George W. Bush celebrated his 60th birthday at the Firehouse in 2006 as the guest of then-mayor and firehouse neighbor Richard M Daley.
"It was an experience that sticks with all of us and the team today, so it was a great opportunity," O'Malley told the WBBM Noon Business Hour on Friday.
The Firehouse fell victim to a devastating fire in December of 2014. The restaurant would reopen in February 2017, but O'Malley said the recovery was slow. He said restaurateurs should not make assumptions.
"Once we reopened, I kept thinking we were going to be able to come right back to where we were. But we were out of the community for 2 ½ years, so it was a process," O'Malley said.
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