NSB's Pappas Drive In manager, longtime customer set up GoFundMe to help staff after fire

When Pappas Drive In & Family Restaurant was destroyed Monday in an overnight fire, its 35 employees were immediately out of jobs.

Almost a week later, through a joint effort between restaurant staff and a loyal customer, a GoFundMe account is already up, with the purpose of helping all of them through the difficult time.

Bobbi Hannan, a manager at the restaurant for the past 16 years, had been helping Janice Bochiardy, a decades-long Pappas' customer, set up the account for three days until they opened it for donations on Friday.

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“She is an amazing person for doing this,” Hannan said in an interview on Friday.

As of Friday afternoon, the account had raised $1,755. Hannan said the money will be split equally among the 35 employees every two weeks.

“All of their lives have been turned upside down!” Bochiardy wrote on the account’s webpage. “They are all still in a state of shock as their livelihood was taken away in a major blaze that completely destroyed this landmark restaurant.”

‘I just wanted to run and hug the building’

Hannan said she’d gotten up around 3:30 a.m. Monday to get ready to open the restaurant in the morning.

She received a message from her boss and owner of the restaurant, Vic Ganoe, saying he didn’t know “when the restaurant is going to be open again.” Shortly after, she saw in Facebook group page posts and messages about the fire.

“I cried,” Hannan said, adding that she drove to the restaurant on Monday and watched it burn for a few more hours. “I just wanted to run and hug the building, because that place to me is like my second home.

“It was the most amazing family-oriented family restaurant ever,” she said.

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Hannan said “a lot of people have been offering jobs online” to Pappas' staff, but while some dishwashing and cooking job opportunities have appeared, servers are still having a hard time.

“A server does not make very much money through unemployment,” she said. “It’s just an exhausting thing, and they’re lucky if they make $250 every two weeks.”

Hannan said she found a job Friday, which she needs now to help her continue raising her 14-year-old granddaughter.

She said she is worried about “a lot of (Pappas' staff) who are young mothers that are single and who have one, two, three children.”

Hannan also mentioned one of Pappas’ cooks who has two teenage children and whose wife is disabled.

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She asked that residents who are able to help do so by donating to the “GoFundMe, help giving direction to finding jobs.”

“It’s not like anybody is asking for a whole bunch of money so that they take weeks and weeks out of work,” Hanna said. “It’s just to get by for a couple of weeks until we can all find jobs and start earning a paycheck.”

To donate to the GoFundMe account, visit gofundme.com and search for “Pappas Employees Support Fund.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Pappas Restaurant New Smyrna Beach opens GoFundMe for staff after fire