Tigeorges’ Chicken<\/a> restaurant had plans to visit the beleaguered island nation to see his family and to deliver aid through a nonprofit he heads. <\/p>\n\nInstead, Laguerre spent the morning cleaning up damage from an electrical fire that tore through the roof of his restaurant Wednesday night. Nobody was injured in the blaze, and the fire did little damage to the inside of the restaurant. But a thin coat of ash covered the tables, and the sour smell of smoke hung in the air.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019ve been trying to go to Haiti for the last 40 days,\u201d Laguerre said as he spread a tarp over a rotisserie and an espresso machine to protect them from rain that could seep in through ceiling holes created by the fire.<\/p>\n
Laguerre had initially planned to travel to Haiti in mid-January but his plans were delayed when a magnitude 7 earthquake shook the capital of Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, killing more than 200,000 people and closing the airport.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were no flights,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I waited, waited. I was all ready to go, and then \u2013 this fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took more than two dozen firefighters to put out the blaze, according to L.A. Fire Department spokesman Devin Gales. Fire investigators\u00a0 estimate it caused $50,000 in property damage and $10,000 in content damage. The art space next door, L\u2019KEG Gallery, also was damaged.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Laguerre said that despite the blaze, he feels blessed. <\/p>\n
The fire could have been worse, he said. And then there\u2019s the lucky fact that none of his relatives in Haiti were injured in the earthquake. They live in northwest Haiti, where the earthquake did little damage.<\/p>\n
Laguerre has hired a contractor to repair the roof of the restaurant, and he hopes to reopen soon. When things have settled down, he will take his long-awaited trip to Haiti to plant fruit trees, distribute cooking appliances, and \u201cgive my people a sense of direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laguerre, who grew up with 10 brothers and sisters in Port-de-Paix, Haiti, opened Tigeorges eight years ago. A Haitian flag tacked onto the restaurant\u2019s wall was unscathed in the fire.<\/p>\n
— Kate Linthicum in Echo Park<\/p>\n
Photo: George Laguerre at his fire-damaged restaurant. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha \/ Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Laguerre was supposed to fly to Haiti on Friday. The charismatic owner of Echo Park\u2019s popular Tigeorges’ Chicken restaurant had plans to visit the beleaguered island nation to see his family and to deliver aid through a nonprofit he heads. Instead, Laguerre spent the morning cleaning up damage from an electrical fire that tore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5470,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}