NIWOT, Colo. (KDVR) — A popular Boulder County pizza shop, Abo’s Pizza, was heavily damaged after an early Saturday morning fire.
Mary Jo Wysoki, the manager of Winot Coffee Co., was the one who made the call after the fire started. She shares a parking lot with Abo’s, and said she just had a gut feeling to get to work early.
“I just had this intuitive feeling to get here early, earlier than my usual, and as I was getting ready there was like a hurried sense within me to get here. So when you look back on those moments, you wonder what that intuitive meant and it turned out it was timely that I got here when I did,” Wysoki said.
After Wysoki made the call, units with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, Mountain View Fire Protection District, Boulder Rural Fire Department and the Longmont Fire Department were on scene.
As fire personnel forced entry, smoke billowed from the front door and they cleared the building for victims. Once the building was confirmed to have no victims inside, fire personnel began fighting the fire. They were able to get the flames under control in an hour and 15 minutes.
The damage to Abo’s Pizza was pretty heavy.
Wysoki said all the businesses in this area are close-knit, and seeing something like this happen to one of their own was just heartbreaking.
”We’re all small businesses, and a lot of the employees work paycheck to paycheck. I know Jeff, as a small business owner, can’t keep his people paid during this time of their remodel,” Wysoki said. “It was just hard to see, we’re neighbors and we all treat each other like neighbors.”
The cause of the fire is still undetermined and is being investigated. Wysoki and other business managers and owners in the area started a GoFundMe to help Abo’s rebuild.