A popular Scotia restaurant has been destroyed by fire and will have to be demolished. Jon Dougherty reports, the owners of the Dairy Circus say they're not sure what's next for the business.
SCOTIA, N.Y. -- There's not much left to the Dairy Circus in Scotia, but memories.
"We loved the ice cream, my husband and I. He'd get the milkshake and I'd get the ice cream cone," Scotia native Sara Flanagan said laughing.
"It was simple food but it was good," Schenectady resident Paul Tracy said. "It was a neighborhood place, the kids used to come here when they got out of school. It was a nice place."
All day Tuesday, people who've been coming to the ice cream shop and restaurant for decades stopped by to see the devastation for themselves.
"It made me very sad to know that these people work so hard, you know, and to have it just destroyed by a fire is bad," Flanagan said.
Scotia fire officials said the fire started after 5 p.m. Monday in the second-floor storage space above the kitchen and quickly spread to the rest of the building. Everyone made it out safely and no injuries were reported.
Longtime customers were left in disbelief.
"A lot of us have been going there since we were little. It's been there all our lives and now it's gone," said Bryce Austin, a senior at neighboring Scotia-Glenville High School.
Dairy Circus sprung to national fame in 2011 when Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes shot part of "The Place Beyond the Pines" there.
Regulars who stopped by Tuesday asked, 'what's next?'
"It was kind of like the hangout place, but I think a lot of people are stunned," Austin said.
"I'm going to miss it. I hope they rebuild. I really do, I hope they rebuild," Flanagan added.
The owner of Dairy Circus tells Time Warner Cable News the building will be demolished within the next two days. At this time he said it's too early to commit to rebuilding.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the owners and employees. As of Tuesday afternoon it's already raised more than $3,000.