A grease fire can shut a restaurant for months. The repair is the easy part. The lost income is the claim.
Structure and kitchen equipment, the income lost while you're closed, spoiled inventory, and the grease-laden smoke that contaminates the whole space each settle on different rules. The carrier's first number rarely reflects the full loss. We document and negotiate all of it for the policyholder.
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Tell us what happened. A licensed Texas public adjuster will review the loss with you, and tell you straight whether you have a fight worth having. The review is free.
The kitchen repair is one number. The income lost during a closure that runs for months, the spoiled inventory, and the grease-laden smoke that contaminates the whole space are usually larger.
Fixing the kitchen is one number. The months of lost revenue while you're closed is usually larger.
Restaurant fires are the most common commercial fire there is, and most start in the kitchen - grease and cooking-equipment fires, hood and duct fires. The problem is that a fire which stays physically small can still close the restaurant for months, because grease-laden smoke coats the entire space and the kitchen has to be rebuilt and re-inspected before you can serve again. The real exposure isn't the visible burn, it's the income lost during a closure that runs far longer than the fire damage alone would suggest.
These claims are won or lost on the business-interruption analysis and the true contamination scope, not the cleanup. A grease fire's smoke is greasy and pervasive, it gets into surfaces, equipment, and the dining room, and the closure period is driven by remediation, rebuild, and re-inspection. A restaurant claim handled casually misses the full lost income, the spoiled inventory, and the contamination beyond the kitchen.
Business interruption
The income lost while the restaurant is closed for remediation and repair, which for a kitchen fire routinely runs months. This is typically the largest component of the loss, larger than the physical repair.
Kitchen equipment
Cooking lines, hoods, refrigeration, and specialized equipment damaged by fire, heat, or the suppression system. Valuation and replacement lead time affect both the repair cost and the closure length.
Spoiled & contaminated inventory
Food inventory lost to the fire, to loss of refrigeration, or to grease-smoke contamination. It's a real, documentable component that a basic scope often shaves.
Grease-smoke contamination
Grease-laden smoke from a cooking fire is pervasive and coats surfaces, equipment, and the dining area well beyond the kitchen. The contamination footprint drives both the repair scope and the closure period.
Grease smoke doesn't stay in the kitchen, and it doesn't wipe off.
A cooking fire produces greasy, pervasive smoke that behaves differently from ordinary smoke: it coats walls, ceilings, equipment, and the dining room in a residue that's hard to clean and carries a persistent odor, and it travels well beyond the kitchen through the air and the HVAC. A restaurant that had a contained kitchen fire can find its entire interior contaminated, and the space can't reopen to the public until it's properly remediated, whether or not the dining room ever saw a flame.
This is the most underscoped element of a restaurant claim, because on the day the adjuster walks through, the dining room looks fine and the fire was 'just in the kitchen.' The contamination is real but easy to dismiss, and the carrier's field adjuster may scope a quick clean-and-repaint that doesn't address the actual greasy residue or the closure it requires. If it isn't documented correctly, the claim gets scoped to the visible burn and the policyholder eats the rest of the contamination and the longer closure it causes.
What we do about it
We bring in industrial hygienists to test and document the true extent of the grease-smoke contamination throughout the space, establishing what actually has to be remediated and why a clean-and-repaint doesn't cover it. That documentation is the difference between the carrier's quick-clean scope and a defensible finding of the real remediation required, which in turn drives the true closure period and the business-interruption loss.
The frame here is simple and it holds all the way through this claim: we document what actually happened. It just consistently turns out to be a great deal larger than what the insurance company's first scope assumed, because their method is built to see the obvious damage, not the full loss.
The carrier wants to value a kitchen repair. The real loss is every month you can't open the doors.
For a restaurant, the income lost while you're closed is the heart of the claim, and for a kitchen fire it runs longer than people expect, because the kitchen has to be remediated, rebuilt, and re-inspected before you can serve. Business interruption is meant to pay the profit you would have earned plus continuing expenses across the genuine closure period, not the optimistic timeline the carrier prefers.
This is where carriers push hardest, because there is no single 'correct' business-interruption number - there's a range of defensible ways to calculate it, and the insurer naturally reaches for the method that pays least. They'll build one model on an optimistic restoration timeline and a baseline that happens to understate your normal operations.
How we push back
We don't hand the carrier one calculation and hope. We model the loss several independent ways - against your real sales history and seasonality, against the kitchen remediation, rebuild, and re-inspection timeline, against the ramp back to normal covers after reopening, mapped to how your restaurant actually operates - and then use those models against each other to find and substantiate the presentation that most accurately captures the full impact. The carrier's single optimistic model is rarely the honest one.
A concrete piece of that: the look-back period. The carrier may favor a multi-year average because a soft year buried in it conveniently drags your baseline down. If a bad year isn't representative of normal operations, a long look-back understates the real loss and a shorter window reflects the truth. Which baseline you use can move the number substantially, and it's exactly the kind of thing a policyholder would never know to contest. We do.
None of this is inflation. It's rigor. We build the most accurate picture of what the interruption actually cost you - and on these losses, the accurate picture is consistently and significantly larger than the carrier's first model, because their method is built to compress the timeline and shave the baseline.
A grease fire can destroy a kitchen and seating and require a renovation that takes up to a year before the restaurant can reopen.
Insureon, on restaurant grease-fire business interruption
Cooking equipment is the leading cause of structure fires in eating and drinking establishments.
NFPA fire statistical reports
Business interruption is meant to cover the net income a restaurant loses until operations resume after a fire.
THREE by Berkshire Hathaway, restaurant property insurance
The shortfalls in these claims are predictable. So is how we fight them.
Large losses in this sector are contested on a handful of recurring fronts. None of these mean the carrier is acting in bad faith, it means the policy is complex and the default reading of it favors the insurer unless someone pushes back with documentation. Here's what they try, and what we do about each:
Carriers may scope a grease fire to a clean-and-repaint of the kitchen and resist the full remediation the greasy smoke actually requires throughout the space.
Our move: we use the hygienist's documented findings to establish the true contamination footprint and the real remediation needed, not a quick clean that doesn't address the residue.
The shorter the assumed closure, the less BI the carrier owes, and insurers ignore the time to rebuild and re-inspect a commercial kitchen.
Our move: we reconstruct the genuine closure timeline including remediation, kitchen rebuild, re-inspection, and the ramp back to normal covers, and model the loss multiple ways to substantiate it.
Specialized kitchen equipment damaged by fire or the suppression system gets undervalued.
Our move: we document replacement-cost entitlement and the true cost and lead time of like-kind kitchen equipment, so depreciation isn't applied to property you're entitled to replace.
Food inventory lost to fire, lost refrigeration, or contamination gets shaved.
Our move: we document the inventory loss from records and apply the valuation the policy supports, so the spoiled and contaminated stock is fully accounted for.
A rebuilt commercial kitchen usually can't go back in 'like for like' without meeting current fire-suppression, ventilation, and health code.
Our move: we identify the code-driven upgrades the rebuild actually requires and tie them to ordinance-or-law coverage so the real cost is captured.
The insurance company's adjuster works for the insurance company.
After a major loss, the carrier sends its own adjuster, and often a forensic accountant and engineering consultants, all retained by the insurer. They are competent and they are not neutral; their job is to resolve the claim on terms favorable to the company that pays them. A public adjuster is the licensed counterweight: we represent the policyholder only, we build and present the claim, and we negotiate the settlement.
On a restaurant loss the asymmetry is the whole problem. The carrier brings specialists. If the policyholder brings a contractor's estimate and hope, the outcome is decided before the negotiation starts. We level the table, document the full loss with the same rigor the carrier's experts bring to minimizing it, and we're compensated as a percentage of what we recover, so our incentive is your number, not theirs.
What happens after you call.
Loss review & policy analysis
We read the actual policy - limits, BI and extra-expense provisions, equipment and inventory valuation, ordinance-or-law, exclusions - and assess the full scope before anyone commits to a number.
Document everything, including the grease-smoke contamination
Structure, kitchen equipment, inventory, and the true reach of grease smoke through the dining room and HVAC. We bring in industrial hygienists to establish the real remediation required, while the evidence still exists.
Build the business-interruption claim - modeled several ways
From real sales and financial records: seasonality, the kitchen rebuild-and-re-inspection timeline, the post-reopening ramp, and the right look-back baseline, modeled independently and used against each other to substantiate the full loss.
Present, negotiate, and settle
We present the documented claim, contest the predictable shortfalls, and negotiate the settlement on your behalf through to resolution.
Questions restaurant owners ask.
The fire was small and just in the kitchen. Why would the claim be large?
Because a small kitchen fire can cause a long closure. Grease-laden smoke from a cooking fire is pervasive and coats the whole space, including the dining room, in a residue that's hard to clean and won't simply wipe off, and the kitchen has to be remediated, rebuilt, and re-inspected before you can serve again. The income lost during that closure is typically the largest part of the claim, far larger than the visible fire damage.
The carrier wants to clean and repaint. Is that enough for a grease fire?
Frequently not. Grease smoke leaves a greasy residue with a persistent odor that a basic clean-and-repaint doesn't actually address, and it spreads well beyond the kitchen. We document the true contamination footprint with hygienist testing to establish the real remediation required, because the difference between a quick clean and proper remediation also drives how long you're closed - and therefore your business-interruption loss.
How is restaurant business interruption calculated?
From your real sales history and financial records, modeled several ways - against seasonality, the kitchen remediation-rebuild-re-inspection timeline, and the ramp back to normal covers after you reopen. The closure for a kitchen fire runs longer than people expect, and the carrier has every incentive to compress the timeline. The look-back baseline matters too. It's rigor, and the rigorous number is consistently larger than the carrier's first model.
Is my spoiled food inventory covered?
It can be. Food lost to the fire, to lost refrigeration during the event, or to grease-smoke contamination is a real, documentable component of the loss. It's often shaved in a basic scope, which is why it should be documented from your records and valued the way the policy supports rather than left out.
What does it cost to hire a public adjuster?
We work on a percentage of the recovery, with no upfront cost. We're only paid if and when you recover, which aligns our incentive with maximizing your settlement. Fee specifics are discussed up front before you commit to anything.
Tell us what happened. We'll tell you straight whether you have a fight worth having.
No cost, no obligation. The fastest path is the phone - for a major loss, call and talk to a person today. A licensed Texas public insurance adjuster will review the loss with you.
713-369-4300Start a claim review
Tell us what happened. A licensed Texas public adjuster will review the loss with you, and tell you straight whether you have a fight worth having. The review is free.
A major loss is decided in the first moves. Make yours count.
Talk to a public adjuster who works only for you. No upfront cost - we're paid a percentage only if you recover.
713-369-4300Crossroads Insurance Recovery Advocates · TDI License 1924788
Don't take our word for it
- Insureon: restaurant grease-fire business interruption, including kitchen and seating loss, a renovation that can take up to a year, and BI covering lost revenue and wages during the closure
- THREE by Berkshire Hathaway: restaurant and hotel property insurance, including a grease fire spreading to walls and ceiling and business interruption covering lost net income until operations resume
- FasterCapital: business-interruption claims after a restaurant kitchen fire, including physical damage that prevents operation and quantifying lost income over the interruption period
- National Fire Protection Association (NFPA): cooking equipment as the leading cause of eating and drinking establishment structure fires
- IRMI: the property-policy definition of pollutants (smoke, soot, fumes) and smoke as a covered fire-damage issue