Durham restaurant to reopen after deadly gas explosion
Torero's Mexican Restaurant will reopen this week, a year after closing due to a natural gas explosion in downtown Durham that left 25 people injured and two dead.
Co-owners Jose Arias, Emmanuel Martinez and Francisco Equihua said they will reopen on Wednesday to serve take-out orders until the coronavirus pandemic threat lessens and restaurant dining rooms are allowed to reopen.
“We are very excited to reopen and start serving customers again,” Martinez said. “We thought a lot about what measures to put in place to keep our customers and ourselves safe during this pandemic.”
The full menu will be offered from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. on Tuesdays through Sundays. Orders can be placed by phone and either picked up curbside or inside the restaurant, where social distancing will be practiced.
Torero's is located at 800 W. Main St., just around the corner (a few hundred feet away) from where the April 10, 2019, explosion occurred. A three-person crew from Durham-based Optic Cable Technology was drilling horizontally as part of a project to install underground cables when it struck a 3/4-inch gas line in front on Kaffeinate, a coffee shop at 115 N. Duke St. The explosion killed Kaffeinate owner Kong Lee and gas company worker Jay Rambeaut.
Six people, including the owners, were inside Torero's at the time, but no one was injured. The restaurant had broken windows and one of the exterior wooden panels was damaged.
Torero's opened in 1994 on Main Street. There are two other locations in Cary and Roxboro.
