It must be scary to have a restaurant catch fire before it even opens. 

“I’ve had restaurant fires before, but none like this,” Steve Kovach, owner of Duke’s Roadhouse, told InMaricopa today. 

The construction site was ablaze Saturday night around 10 p.m. The fire started in a trashcan and what exactly caused it — a spark from a welder, a cigarette butt — is still under investigation. It burned for half an hour before firefighters put it out.  

Kovach today chalked up the minimal damage to the unique metal build of the new honky-tonk.  

“If this was conventional construction, the building would have burned down,” said Kovach. 

Kovach said he was just a few days out from installing fire sprinklers and a custom door at the tavern-to-be. Had sprinklers gone off, the damage would have been much more extensive — air dropped fire retardant is messy, dangerous and expensive to clean up. That custom door would have burned, too.  

Another piece of unique irony in this: the City of Maricopa was scheduled to test the fire hydrant pressure outside the restaurant. Saturday’s fire gave them a chance to do that.  

But here’s the good news: Kovach said the fire didn’t damage the building and the opening is still on schedule. When exactly Duke’s opens is still a question. Kovach’s best ballpark estimate is six weeks from now, maybe later. Maybe May. But it is opening soon. He’s ironing out the final details, like working with the city on the short stretch of road in front of Duke’s. 

Kovach opened a similar restaurant last September in Goodyear called The Stillery. It’s a Nashville concept with a half-dozen mason-jar-cocktail restaurants in that city and metro Phoenix. 

Like Duke’s, Kovach says the pillars of his restaurants are food, cocktails and atmosphere — live music and line dancing.