A warm breeze carried the faint smell of smoke and ash through Old Town Newhall on Tuesday, where green tarps concealed the rubble left by a fire that destroyed a row of Main Street businesses early Monday.
Despite the afternoon heat, residents made their way downtown, stopping along the fence to peer through gaps at what remained as bouquets of flowers rested on a nearby bench.
Outside Newhall Refinery, co-owner Ralph Gonzalez stood facing what remained of his restaurant Tuesday.
“It’s hard to process, but, you know, it’s Day Two, so we’re just kind of taking it day by day,” Gonzalez said.
The three-alarm fire that tore through a stretch of Main Street Monday destroyed The MAIN theater and Newhall Refinery and affected seven businesses, according to city officials. Some of the commercial spaces were vacant at the time. The destruction displaced workers and dealt a major blow to businesses and art spaces that had become fixtures of Old Town Newhall.
Now, business owners, city officials and residents are beginning to reckon with both the immediate economic losses and a larger question: how to rebuild a piece of Main Street whose century-old buildings and locally grown businesses had become part of the community’s identity.
Los Angeles County firefighters were dispatched to the 24200 block of North Main Street at 2:55 a.m. Monday, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The blaze eventually grew to a third-alarm response before firefighters knocked it down at 8:57 a.m. The cause remained under investigation Tuesday.
Gonzalez and his fiancee and co-owner, Elvira Christine Munoz, were away celebrating her birthday near Long Beach when they were awakened around 3 a.m. by a phone call.
There was a fire in the area, they were told. Their restaurant might be affected.
They packed their things and rushed back to Newhall.
The couple had owned Newhall Refinery since December 2022, Gonzalez said. The restaurant employed about 25 people at the time of the fire.
“It’s been hard on us, but it’s been especially hard on them because they woke up with no job,” Gonzalez said. “It’s very hard to just kind of pivot from being in a place for three, four years to just not having the job overnight.”
Munoz launched a GoFundMe to support Newhall Refinery’s recovery and efforts to rebuild, with a portion of the proceeds going to employees who suddenly lost their jobs. Gonzalez said the couple wants to make sure their workers are taken care of in the immediate future as they look for new employment. As of Tuesday afternoon, the fundraiser had collected more than $10,000 towards its $26,000 goal.
Despite the destruction, Gonzalez said they intend to bring Newhall Refinery back, although he does not yet know whether that will be possible at the same Main Street location.
“The name Newhall Refinery has really kind of resonated with the folks of Santa Clarita, and if we can keep providing them that same food and energy and love, but maybe not in the same shell, we’re going to try our best to do it,” he said.
For Gonzalez, replicating the restaurant will mean recreating something less tangible than a menu or dining room.
“The Refinery was special, and if you ask people that visited our place, it had a charm to it. It had a feel. It was cozy. It was inviting,” he said. “That’s going to be hard to replicate.”
The fire also completely destroyed The MAIN, a small theater and arts venue operated by the city of Santa Clarita, city spokesperson Carrie Lujan said Tuesday.
The city did not own the building, Lujan said, but leased the space from the property owner.
Its loss came only days after Main Street had again been filled with visitors.
On Thursday night, the city held one of its SENSES Block Parties, a monthly event that brings live music, food and entertainment to Main Street. The MAIN was open and preparing for an upcoming show, Lujan said, while a local artist’s exhibition reception was also held there that night.
Four days later, the theater was gone.
“It’s just heartbreaking for us as an organization and as an arts community,” Lujan said.
The MAIN provided performance space for local arts nonprofits as well as musicians, comedians and other performers, she said. The city is now working with local arts organizations to find alternate locations for displaced shows.
The city has spent years working to revitalize Old Town Newhall as what Lujan called Santa Clarita’s “premier arts and entertainment district.”
Main Street hosts some of the city’s largest community events, including Light Up Main Street during the holidays, the Fourth of July parade and the SENSES Block Parties.
None of the structures destroyed in the fire had an official historic designation, Lujan said, though much of the portion that burned was more than 100 years old.
Mayor Laurene Weste described Old Town Newhall as “the root of our City’s history” in a statement after the fire and said the city “will do everything we can to bring back what we have lost.”
The nearby Canyon Theatre Guild survived the fire.
The effects of the blaze were already being felt by businesses that escaped the flames.
Across the street, The Old Town Junction closed Monday after losing power as firefighters battled the blaze, general manager Bailey Vlach said. Water from the firefighting effort flooded roads, she said, while flames were visible from the street.
The restaurant reopened for its regular hours Tuesday, but Vlach said business was slower than normal and the smell of smoke still lingered.
“I think people are also still kind of concerned to come this way in case, you know, road closure, or maybe they don’t want to breathe in the smoke,” Vlach said.
The loss of Newhall Refinery, The MAIN and other businesses could have longer-term effects on neighboring restaurants and shops, she said, because businesses on Main Street drew customers to one another.
“It brought good business for us because people come check out there and then come check out us,” Vlach said.
She also worries that construction, trucks and noises during an eventual rebuilding effort could keep some visitors away.
But signs of the close relationship among the businesses were also apparent Tuesday.
When Vlach saw Newhall Refinery owners outside, she told them they were welcome to come into The Old Town Junction for a free meal.
Lujan said similar offers of help have emerged across Santa Clarita, including businesses offering spaces for displaced arts programs and employment to workers who suddenly found themselves without jobs.
The city is considering ways to assist affected businesses but has not yet determined what that assistance might look like, Lujan said.
“We’re looking at all the options right now,” she said. “It’s really too early to say exactly what direction we’re going to go in.”
For some residents who returned to Main Street Tuesday, memories of the area before the fire were still fresh.
Michelle Sibert had been there just five days earlier for the SENSES Block Party.
She remembered families gathering on Main Street, children dancing and a band playing near the buildings that would burn four days later. She had seen artist Jane Mick’s work inside The MAIN and remembered admiring one painting in particular.
Sibert and a friend had spent part of the evening sitting on a bench in the area.
On Tuesday, she returned to find the row of buildings reduced to rubble.
She thought she could see one of the benches amid the debris.
“I was just there,” Sibert recalled thinking as she watched coverage of the fire. “It’s gone.”
Other residents stopped throughout Tuesday afternoon to look through the green tarps surrounding the site.
Lupe Sanoja and Thomas Weir, who moved to the area last fall, came downtown after hearing that a theater had burned. They initially feared it was the Canyon Theatre Guild, where the couple had seen “South Pacific” after Thomas gave Lupe tickets as a Valentine’s Day gift.
They were relieved to discuss the theater was still standing, but saddened when they realized The MAIN and neighboring businesses had been lost.
The couple said they had been drawn to Old Town Newhall partly because of its older buildings and the history they represented.
Back outside Newhall Refinery, Gonzalez said the response from residents, city officials, firefighters and others convinced him that giving up was not an option.
“We’ve gotten so much love, so much compassion from all the people,” he said.
Whether Newhall Refinery eventually returns to the same spot remains uncertain. But Gonzalez was considerably more certain about the restaurant itself.
“We’ll be back,” he said.