Iconic Tacoma pizzeria, karaoke bar closed after Labor Day kitchen fire

Spud’s Pizza Parlor will be closed for the foreseeable future after a grease fire broke out in the kitchen over Labor Day weekend.

No one was injured in the incident, which started around 5 p.m. on Aug. 30, but the midcentury building was damaged in the process of putting it out. Tacoma Fire Department determined the fire was “unintentional,” likely caused by “radiated or conducted heat from operating equipment” and exacerbated by a build-up of grease, spokesperson Chelsea Shepherd confirmed Monday.

Spud’s owner Tracie Paul said her staff handled the situation as best they could, keeping fire extinguishers on the blaze until emergency responders arrived and evacuating the entire restaurant on a busy Saturday afternoon.

“If they hadn’t acted as swiftly and responsibly as they did, it would’ve been a lot worse,” Paul told The News Tribune in a phone call Friday.

Typically the kitchen is not super busy during the day, she continued, but Saturdays had been different this summer. On Aug. 30, Spud’s was serving its final lunches before the new school year as part of All Youth Can Eat, a program coordinated by local humanitarian Kwabe Amoah-Forson of The Peace Bus that allows children under 18 or college students with an ID card to access free meals at different local restaurants every day of the week.

The restaurant’s manager called Paul around 5 p.m. as another employee was dialing 911. One of the next-door neighbors appears to have called in the fire after seeing “light to medium” smoke billowing from the roof and vents. Emergency personnel arrived at the scene by 5:13 p.m., according to Tacoma Fire’s report.

“It looks like the entire building was on fire, but that was not the case,” said Paul.

Unfortunately, the long-and-narrow kitchen spans almost the length of the building, so smoke permeated nearly every room, including the front dining room and the iconic bar in the back.

Paul stressed that she was “really proud” of her staff.

They directed firefighers to the pizza ovens, said Shepherd, who then determined the flames extended into the vents. It was tamed relatively quickly from there, but crews had to tear out a portion of the sub-ceiling and an area of the roof joists also suffered some charring.

Fire inspections at Tacoma restaurants

Tacoma Fire Department aims to inspect commercial buildings for “obvious fire hazards” annually. City code also requires that equipment such as a hood and ventilation system be cleaned at least once a year. A church kitchen, for instance, might only need that minimum, but for heavier usage, fire marshals recommend cleanings three to six times a year, Shepherd said. Restaurant owners are responsible for hiring a licensed fire protection company that reports the results of the inspection and any violations to the city.

Paul said Tacoma Fire inspectors visited Spud’s this summer, and she also pays a private company to clean the equipment twice a year.

The last cleaning was reported in June with no violations, Shepherd confirmed. Tacoma Fire marshals also inspected the business in July; it passed, but Shepherd noted that the public agency’s inspections do not involve prodding into duct pipes. During that July visit, according to Shepherd, marshals informed the business it was overdue for its semi-annual servicing (every six months) of the hood-suppression system, which ensures the built-in extinguisher functionality and equipment is in good working order.

Paul said the system had been serviced during the June cleaning and that the sticker on the hood reflected that date. She doesn’t believe the pizza oven vent is connected to the hood system.

Spud’s previously was fined for missing hood-suppression servicing reports, most recently in December 2024, said Shepherd. The last servicing record Tacoma Fire had on file at that time was from August 2022.

The fire investigation report, while confirming the unintentional nature of the flames, did not clarify whether the suppression system properly activated, added Shepherd.

What’s next for Spud’s

Despite many years in the restaurant business — her aunt previously owned Lucky Silver Tavern and her mother still runs Marcia’s Silver Spoon on South Tacoma Way — Paul “has never dealt with anything like this before,” she said by phone.

They haven’t been able to enter the building since it happened, as local authorities and insurance agents completed their investigations. With utilities including water and electricity off, pizza dough — a lot of it, in preparation for the weekend and back-to-school dinner — has been idling in a now-muggy walk-in.

“There is work to do. It’s basically a waiting game right now,” said Paul, who shared an initial update on the restaurant’s Facebook page the morning after the fire.

She is most disheartened at the thought of losing her staff of 16 people.

“It took me this long to get a stable team that works as a team,” she continued. “It’s just wild, and now it might be all starting over.”

Paul bought the iconic pizzeria in 2022 from the Almonte family, who had operated it for more than 20 years. Founder Spud Hansen opened the business in the 1960s as a Pizza Pete’s franchise, changing the name in the ‘70s. Known for its retro bar that feels stuck in time, thin-crust pies cut in squares and frequent community involvement through student fundraisers and after-game sports dinners, Spud’s has been a staple of Tacoma’s South End for going on 70 years.

Paul had modernized the pizza recipe and the beer list while holding true to old-school favorites like the shrimp salad, Canadian bacon sandwich and Spudder chips. The dark lounge draws daytime barflies, and it routinely fills up for karaoke Wednesday-Saturday nights, including a late-afternoon family version in the parlor every Saturday.

“I very much wanted to write a celebratory post about the changes we’ve made, and more changes and upgrades to come. I wanted to be doing football and breakfast with you guys this weekend. And I really wanted to celebrate three years of business in an extraordinarily tough time to be doing it in this industry,” wrote Paul in a Sept. 7 update on Facebook.

As of Sunday evening, they were still waiting on insurance, utilities and the restoration company “to clear us for any action,” she wrote. A timeline remains elusive, but she hopes to have more details to share next week.

It’s hard to say how long it will take to repair the damage and what can be salvaged. The space is full of vintage elements: “I wanna keep my rolly chairs and the dark bar and everything that makes it the neighborhood dive bar,” Paul told The News Tribune last week. “I don’t want wallpaper and marble.”

She encouraged customers to stay tuned to the restaurant’s Facebook page for updates.

This story was originally published September 9, 2025 at 5:30 AM.