Photo by James Ward<\/a><\/p>\nOn Monday evening a fire in West Arlington damaged several businesses, including Beirut Grill, Smash Toast and Folklore Grove Bookstore. <\/p>\n
The fire occurred on the 2400 block of W. Abram Street and resulted in a four-alarm response from the Arlington Fire Department, which saw the deployment of 13 engines, four ladder trucks and more than 80 firefighters. <\/p>\n
No civilian injuries were reported. One firefighter was transported for smoke inhalation and is in stable condition, according to an Arlington Fire Department news release. <\/p>\n
The fire was dispatched at approximately 5:46 p.m. Monday, according to the release. It was brought under control at approximately 7:40 p.m. <\/p>\n
Abbas Fares, one of the owners of Beirut Grill, said the restaurant was closed on Mondays and he learned of the fire around 5 p.m. Monday. <\/p>\n
\u201cI received a call from one of my friends,\u201d Fares said. <\/p>\n
He was shopping at the time of the phone call letting him know about the fire, and he left to see the restaurant. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we see right now, all our memories, all our hard work is gone,\u201d Fares said. <\/p>\n
Originally a restaurant in Fort Worth, Beirut Grill moved to Arlington 4.5 years ago for a \u201cbigger opportunity,\u201d Fares said. <\/p>\n
Smash Toast, like Beirut Grill, was an independent business, and it served as a sandwich shop with a bookstore called Folklore Grove inside. The restaurant and bookshop opened in September 2025 and offered events for residents like book clubs and trivia nights. <\/p>\n
Folklore Grove bookseller Brittany Rodriquez learned of the fire by a phone call, as well. <\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to come this morning, but I got a little too overwhelmed,\u201d Rodriquez said. \u201cI came back with my friends so we could grieve together.\u201d <\/p>\n
Folklore Grove and Beirut Grill are launching GoFundMe accounts to raise funds after the fire. <\/p>\n
@wall035203<\/p>\n
news-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A city worker and an Arlington firefighter look at the remains of businesses Aug. 18 after a fire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[992,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-410904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-city","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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