Landmark Cape restaurant destroyed in 5-alarm blaze

A fast-moving, five-alarm fire swept through a Cape Cod restaurant yesterday, destroying the family-owned business that has been a fixture on Main Street in Bourne for 70 years.

Mezza Luna, an Italian restaurant, caught fire around 4:30 p.m. while about two dozen patrons and employees were inside. Everyone evacuated safely without injuries, but later two firefighters were treated for exertion, according to Joe Carrara, deputy fire chief in Bourne. One firefighter was still being evaluated last night at Tobey Hospital in Wareham, he said.

The blaze started in the attic of the two-story wood-frame building, and spread quickly, ripping through the core of the restaurant and causing the roof to collapse within two hours, Carrara said.

David Hickman of Boston said he was riding his motorcycle when he stopped to watch a small trickle of smoke coming through the roof vents of the restaurant.

"I thought, this is going to be a really quick fire, it'll all be done in a few minutes," said Hickman, recounting how patrons left the building calmly when the only visible danger was smoke coming out the roof. But, everything changed within a matter of minutes, he said.

"I could not believe what I was seeing," Hickman said. "At first I was just seeing this beautiful restaurant with a little puff of smoke, and now there's nothing left of the place."

Carrara said between 50 and 75 firefighters from several neighboring communities, including Onset, Wareham, and Plymouth, responded to a call for an attic fire, and then had difficulty containing the blaze.

"The fire just got good headway; . . . it was able to race through that attic space and come down," Carrara said. Firefighters were forced to retreat and focus on protecting the adjacent buildings, specifically the two-apartment home of Mezza Luna's owner, Emilio Cubellis.

The Cubellis family, which established the restaurant in 1937, stood in the parking lot and watched in shock as the building succumbed to the flames, Hickman said.

Cubellis's brother, Tony, who was head chef of the restaurant and lives next door, said he was not at the restaurant when the fire broke out and did not know how it started. He said the family hopes to rebuild what they've lost.

"Right now it's step by step," he said. "Our family has been here forever, so we are going to come back to the community."

Mezza Luna, Italian for "half-moon," was founded by the Cubellis brothers' grandmother, Speranza Cubellis, who came to Buzzards Bay to sell produce with her family of five. But soon her Italian cooking overshadowed her fruit stand. She started feeding laborers and travelers out of her house, and then opened the restaurant as the demand for her cooking grew.