LINCOLN SQUARE — Matt and Laura Kollar's daughters are still too young to grasp the magnitude of the fire that destroyed their parents' Lincoln Square hardware store, Matty K's, along with the Lincoln Square Lanes bowling alley.
To the girls, the store is simply "broken."
"Papa, fix it," said the couple's 2-year-old.
Kollar would, if he could.
"I'm a proactive kind of person — it's weird to go by the store and not do anything," he said. "I don't know what to do with myself. I've got too much time to think and not enough to do."
It's been mere weeks since flames engulfed the building at 4874 N. Lincoln Ave., but it's felt like months, Kollar said.
"It feels like everything's taking forever," he said.
Successive investigations — first by police and fire officials and then by insurance adjusters — have kept the Kollars in limbo.
Any blaze the size of the one at the bowling alley automatically triggers an arson investigation — arson is presumed to be the cause until proven otherwise, Kollar said.
He said he heard the whispers that the fire was intentionally set, but brushed them aside.
"There was no question in my mind this was an accident," he said.
Dick Drehobl, who owned the bowling alley for more than 30 years, came to the site daily to mourn his burnt-out business, Kollar sad.
"I had four years, they had 40," he said. "Their anguish ... it became shared grief."
Authorities eventually arrived at the same conclusion as Kollar, informing him a week ago there was no evidence of arson.
Insurance company representatives then started sifting through the rubble inch by inch to determine the fire's cause — i.e., who's going to pay out the claims.
"We won't see a single penny from insurance for another two to three weeks and at that point it will likely just be an advance on the full claim to keep our heads above water," Kollar said.
Though the hardware store was barely touched by the actual fire, it suffered enormous collateral damage. The ceiling collapsed, shelves were knocked over and the gallons and gallons of water used to extinguish the blaze laid waste to the shop's inventory.
The Kollars hadn't been allowed back into the building until late last week and were stunned by the ruin and rot that confronted them.
"The amount of rust and mold was amazing," said Laura Kollar.
Little if anything is salvageable. The next step is to bring in an outside company to clear out the store, at a cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, and then the walls will come down.
Depending on permits, demolition of the building is still at least a week or possibly months away.
"I think that's when it will hit me," Laura Kollar said. "It's still not gone until it's gone."
Though they remain invested emotionally and financially in the building at Lincoln and Ainslie, the Kollars have already begun searching for a new home for Matty K's in Lincoln Square.
Reopening wasn't necessarily a given after four sometimes bumpy years as small business owners.
"One of the first reactions after the fire was, 'OK, it's gone, we're done,'" Laura said.
Though Matt said he enjoyed helping people, especially customers working on lengthy DIY projects who he got to know by name, the hours were killer for guy with a young family — 80-hour weeks and days where he might not see his girls.
Up until recent months, Matty K's also had struggled with its primary supplier to maintain inventory — particularly after the supplier began requiring full payment for merchandise six months in advance.
The Kollars added a pair of secondary suppliers to keep the shelves stocked more consistently and were just about to add a third when the fire struck.
"The store was finally hitting its groove," said Matt.
Ultimately it was the outpouring of support and love from the community that convinced the Kollars to resurrect Matty K's.
A GoFundMe campaign has raised more than $12,000, much from friends and family, but also from fellow business owners and residents of Lincoln Square.
"We realized we were a neighbor," Laura said. "That's one of the reasons we want to rebuild in Lincoln Square."
The chamber of commerce has pitched in, providing the pair a list of potential locations that meet their needs in terms of square footage, loading zones and parking.
Questions the couple are pondering: Should they lease a temporary storefront in the event a new commercial building rises up out of the ashes of Matty K's/Lincoln Square Lanes, or should they buy a building in order to have more control over their rent?
"It's all very preliminary," Matt said.
The two said they won't exactly be starting from scratch, like they did in 2011 when Matty K's first opened. They've not only built a name that people recognize but they've learned from early mistakes.
"We know how to do it right this time," Laura said.
They know their top sellers, like toilet seats, paint, plants in the spring and keys — duplicating keys seriously kept the shop afloat many a month. They're also keenly aware of what doesn't work, specifically stocking any brand contractors aren't familiar with.
In a perfect world, Matt said, "We'd find a place today and they'd want to sell it to us for a dollar," and under that highly unlikely scenario, Matty K's would be back to cutting keys within six months.
A more feasible timeline has the couple reopening in a year.
"There's a lot of work from here to there," said Matt.
Still, we can already picture the grand re-opening signs: "Papa fixed it."
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