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Vietnamese restaurant BúnBúnBún was destroyed by a fire in the early hours of Monday morning, leaving the staff in ‘shock and disbelief’. Roughly 70 firefighters were called out to tackle the blaze at 134b Kingsland Road just before 3am on Monday. Ten people were evacuated safely and there are no reported injuries.
However the fire has ‘completely ruined’ much of the restaurant, damaging part of the basement, first and second floors, while the kitchen is ‘completely burnt’. There are plans to continue serving food from the shop next door as soon as possible.
BúnBúnBún staff Lucy Nguyen and Cay Dinh have started a GoFundMe to get the restaurant back on its feet. So far, it’s raised £680 of its £50,000 goal.
On the crowdfunder they write: ‘Our kitchen caught fire last night while a member of our staff was preparing for the following day. Very fortunate nobody was hurt, however our kitchen is completely burnt and our shop floor is completely ruined.
‘There is no way of us opening up anytime soon but we are trying our very best to sort things out. In the meantime we are trying to set up next door (134c Kingsland Road) to serve food as normal as we can.
‘We have been open as a restaurant here for more than 8 years now and everyone at BBB are all devastated with what has happened. We are all in shock and disbelief – no words can describe the extent of our sadness right now.
‘If you are able to support us in any way you can we would appreciate that very much. Any donation of any amount would truly help us in getting things back up and running again.’
BúnBúnBún’s other branch in Dalston is still open as normal.
Donate at BúnBúnBún’s GoFundMe page here.