Fire closes flagship of Brazilian cafe chain, social spot

At the rear of Café Belô on Brighton Avenue in Allston, firefighters battled a two-alarm fire yesterday that closed the popular Brazilian meeting place. (George Rizer/Globe Staff)

After toiling in restaurants and hotels for a decade, Hildo Costa opened Café Belô as a tiny Allston takeout shop 11 years ago. It has grown steadily to become the flagship of a local chain and a focal point for the area's Brazilian community, a place where hundreds go daily to sip coffee, grab a quick meal, or celebrate over heaping plates of barbecue.

Now, it is closed indefinitely. Yesterday morning, a fire that started above the rear corner of the restaurant raged through the building's ceiling, causing $350,000 in damage and jeopardizing the jobs of 30 employees just weeks before Christmas, a Boston Fire Department spokesman and the restaurant's owner said.

"It's our place for everything. For food, for meeting, for seeing friends," said Rosana Yagelovic, who emigrated from Belo Horizonte in Brazil eight years ago. Like others interviewed at local Brazilian businesses, she said she eats there at least once a day.

Costa, who named the restaurant after Belo Horizonte, the city he also left, as a 21-year-old in 1986, said he was shocked and saddened when he arrived at the 181 Brighton Ave. restaurant shortly after 6 a.m. yesterday. The street and plaza were blocked by emergency vehicles, and the damage was worse than he expected.

"I'm still sad thinking about all the people that work here and come here and all the things that depend on this business," said Costa, surveying the post-fire scene mid-morning. His eyes red-rimmed, he watched as restoration workers cut plywood to cover the restaurant's shattered windows and swept debris - including piles of water-logged postcards advertising Brazilian businesses - from the entrance.

No one was injured in the two-alarm fire, which began while Café Belô was closed for the night. Firefighters from Ladder 14 and Engine 41 a block away responded immediately to a neighbor's 911 call shortly before 4 a.m. and found flames darting up from the rear of the roof. About 60 firefighters spent 4 1/2 hours battling the blaze from inside the restaurant, from the roof, and from the parking lot shared with Rite Aid Pharmacy and other businesses a few hundred feet west of the intersection of Brighton and Harvard avenues, said Steve MacDonald, a Fire Department spokesman.

About half an hour after the department arrived, the cinder-block wall of the one-story building developed a floor-to-ceiling crack, and the metal trusses supporting the flat rubber roof began to buckle and twist, prompting Deputy Chief Stephen Dunbar to order firefighters to vacate the building and abandon the roof until it could be stabilized, MacDonald said. Rite Aid, separated by a firewall, suffered minimal damage and reopened yesterday, he said.

The cause of the fire, which seemed to begin in the ceiling above the kitchen and a storage room, remained unknown yesterday, MacDonald said.

Café Belô served about 1,000 people a day, Costa said. The restaurant offered breakfast seven days and live music four nights a week. Its pay-by-the-pound churrasco, or spit-grilled meat, and side orders attracted nearby workers at lunch, hungry college students, and families. It is also a gathering place for Brazilian day-laborers waiting for work; yesterday, many of them huddled out of the rain in corners of the parking lot, wearing paint-splattered boots and knit caps.

Costa said roughly half the patrons are Brazilian.

Word spread quickly among the regulars yesterday. Djalma Baldelim, a truck driver from West Roxbury, said he raced over from a physical therapy appointment after learning of the fire from a secretary at Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center. "It's a big loss," said Baldelim, who grew up about 150 miles from Belo Horizonte.

Costa said he hoped to retain as many workers as possible with temporary positions at his other restaurants in Somerville, Everett, and Framingham. He said Café Belô could be closed four months or more as he negotiates insurance, official inspectionos, and renovation issues. For the first time since emigrating, he said, success could require more than hard work and customer support."It's something new for me," he said. "I wish I could just set a plan and say I'm doing this and this and this."