The Shed in Miss. destroyed by fire

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (WALA) - An early morning fire destroyed The Shed BBQ and Blues Joint in Ocean Springs, one of the Gulf Coast's most popular restaurants.

“We sat and just watched it and cried. It's like our home away from home and it will never be the same again,” said Ryann Breneman, who spent the last three years working at The Shed.

“Brad (one of the owners) and I were standing up on the stage at 2:30 this morning and for 3 hours we just sat there and watched it burn,” said the Director of Sales Tim Wold.

One of the owners of The Shed, Brooke Lewis, said she is crushed at the sight of it all.

“We can rebuild the restaurant, the barbeque joint. It’s the spirit we have to hang onto,” said Lewis.

That spirit is the heart of the community and their items that hung on the walls of The Shed the past 10 years.

“We’re really community driven and The Shed was built out of the community. Whether it was pieces of tin or their old train sets and pianos, whatever memorabilia,” said Lewis.

“Everybody knows The Shed. It’s the heart of the community. It’s the soul, blues, and BBQ. They came back after Katrina; I know they’ll come back after this,” said customer Kim Flynn.

“All the competitions, the trophies, the dollar bills people signed all over the years. All the tables, the signatures, and the pictures, everything is gone forever and you can’t just build it back up,” said Breneman.

Lewis said the only thing that survived the fire was the pork, cooking overnight in the smoker.

“Brad got through the pile of rubbish, got to the smoker, opened it up, and said the food was righteous. He said it was perfect,” Lewis said. “The kitchen crew came out, pulled the pork, and served it to the community.”

Less than 24 hours after the fire, people showed up to give items like license plates and signed dollar bills to begin the rebuilding as well as the healing process.

Others drove by the joint to take pictures of the damage and remember the good times they had there.

“Every hour there are probably 100 people so they just keeps coming and coming,” Wold said.

“We just need the community to come out, start hammering some nails, and bringing out their old license tags, and dollar bills to sign. Start marking up the walls like the original Shed. Gather the community around and get it rolling, get the smoker rolling again,” said Lewis.

For more information on how you can help out, check out The Shed's Facebook page .