As soon as Sydney Baillieul heard about the fire at Mitchell’s Sports Bar and Grill last week, she went to see the destruction for herself.
Baillieul, 21, had worked at the bar as a server for almost two years and had become part of a close-knit family of co-workers who hung out before and after their shifts.
So when she saw that flames had gutted the bar, her first worry was not losing her job and paycheck, but losing ties with her fellow employees. “The building all kept us together really,” she said. “I didn’t want us to split up.”
That’s where O’Reilly’s comes in.
The Irish pub and restaurant just opened in The Harrison building next to Parkview Field. And with baseball season approaching, the new bar needed workers. So O’Reilly’s sought out Mitchell’s employees and offered many of them jobs, including Baillieul.
O’Reilly’s managing partner Richard Cieslinski, a veteran of the restaurant business, said that after learning the news about Mitchell’s, he felt the bar’s pain.
“I hate to see a restaurant go down like that. There’s nothing worse than a fire,” he said. “It’s a nightmare.”
Early Tuesday, flames destroyed Mitchell’s, along with a liquor store and hair salon, in the Marketplace of Canterbury, a shopping center near St. Joe Center and St. Joe roads.
No one was hurt in the blaze, which possibly started in Mitchell’s kitchen and nearly spread to Piere’s Entertainment Center, the fire department said. The cause is still under investigation.
Knowing that the bar’s staff would be out of work, Cieslinski called Leigh Suthers, a manager and bartender at Mitchell’s, and quickly hired her.
Suthers, 23, said Cieslinski told her, “If anyone else wants to come, tell them to come in. We’d love to give them a job as well.”
She spread the word that Cieslinski was looking for workers, and so far, eight Mitchell’s employees have taken jobs at O’Reilly’s.
Cieslinski said he had been to Mitchell’s many times and knew the level of service the staff provided. “Opening up you need the best service, and that’s what we’re trying to get by bringing them on board,” he said.
Suthers described Cieslinski’s gesture as “a blessing.”
“What place is just like, ‘Oh, we just opened up, and we actually want to hire all of you,’ ” said Delena Halferty, another Mitchell’s server who took a position at O’Reilly’s.
Baillieul, Suthers and Halferty all said they’ll go back to Mitchell’s if and when it re-opens.
“It really wasn’t just a serving job. It was so much more than that,” said Halferty, 21. “We went out of our way to make that place better.”
Cieslinski expects that some of the workers he’s hired will eventually return to Mitchell’s, and he’s fine with that.
“In the interim, they need work,” he said. “I kind of reached out to them because it was a win-win for both of us.”
