A fire broke out in one of the upstairs apartments of the South Side Soda Shop last week on Wednesday. The fire was contained to the apartment, and nobody was hurt.

However, due to water damage in the drywall of the restaurant below, it is temporarily closed. 

Nick and Charity Boyd became owners of the restaurant in 1986, which has existed as the South Side Soda Shop since the 1940s. The building was built in 1910. 

The fire was called in just after 11 p.m. Nick Boyd was quick to express appreciation to the fire department. 

“The fire company, we cannot commend them enough,” Boyd said. “We have partnered with the city for years. Holidays we’ll take pies to the fire stations or the police stations … They and their families eat with us.”

Boyd said that the fire department went to lengths to ensure that the restaurant stayed in the best shape it could. 

“They were so considerate to put tarps down and buckets to catch the little bit of water that was coming down to help to minimize the damage,” Boyd said. 

Jason Samuel, associate professor of communication and director of WGCS FM and Globe Media, lived in the apartment where the fire started when he was a student at Goshen College. 

“A lot of sentimentality there,” Samuel said, “I worked at the Soda Shop a lot too.”

For Samuel, the relationship with the Soda Shop is an important one. 

“There’s a large part of me that believes wholeheartedly that if Nick and Charity didn’t offer me a job in 1989, none of this [gestures to office] would have happened,” Samuel said. 

Samuel applied at 13 places, looking for a job and the Soda Shop was the only place that offered him a job, telling him that they recognized his accent. Both Nick Boyd and Samuel are from Philadelphia. 

“I worked my ass off there for them,” Samuel said. “They saved me.”

The connection to the Soda Shop is still current. Emma Detwiler, a junior social work major at GC, works there now as a server. While her main job is serving food, the relationships with people stand out to her. 

“It’s a lot of just serving, and we have so many regulars there,” Detwiler said. “So it’s a lot of people work and relationship building.”

The fire happened a few days before the restaurant was featured on The Food Network. In 2007, Guy Fieri’s show “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” featured them. Now, “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: Triple D Nation” came back to film in 2024 and aired the episode on Friday. The Goshen Theater hosted a watch party in the ballroom. 

“Everybody was so supportive that Friday night because it had just happened a couple days ago,” Detwiler said. “On social media, we’ve seen the support and, yeah, just people wishing and praying and giving us good luck.”

If all goes to plan, the restaurant should open in mid-April.