Badly burned in ‘freak’ fire, Tacoma restaurant owner faces a painful recovery

The co-owner and head chef of Side Piece Kitchen, among Tacoma’s most prolific restaurants, said she was “really, really grateful to be alive” after an accidental home kitchen fire last week left much of her body burned and the home she shares with her husband in need of repairs.

Reached by phone on Monday at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Hailey Hernandez expressed gratitude for her family, friends and medical team who have supported her recovery since the Feb. 2 incident. Her tight-knit staff has kept the South Tacoma breakfast restaurant, beloved for big biscuit sandwiches and clever cheesecakes in endless flavor combinations, running in her and Dante Hernandez’s absence, she said.

“All of them held it down like nothing else. We didn’t miss a beat,” she told The News Tribune on Monday. “I couldn’t be more proud of them. I’m really, really fortunate.”

She trusts her staff so sincerely that she hasn’t thought much about the restaurant she opened with Dante in 2022, first as a ghost kitchen, expanding to a brick-and-mortar the following year to daily-sellout success.

“They still need jobs. We still need to do stuff for our community,” said Hernandez.

One of her longtime employees, Maggie Turney, created a GoFundMe with a goal of $65,000 to support her recovery — quickly met in less than 48 hours and as of Monday exceeded by $10,000.

The page explained that while doctors expect that some of Hailey’s burns will heal “without severe medical intervention other than some physical therapy and diligent wound care,” the ramifications, necessary procedures and timeline for recovery would reveal themselves in time. Hailey, 31, had announced in early January that she was about three months pregnant with their first child.

“I’m genuinely so absolutely crazy happy to be alive because when I was on fire, I thought for sure I was gonna die,” recalled the chef on Monday. The baby is doing well; she said she felt the first kicks while resting in her hospital bed.

Hailey sustained first- and deep second-degree burns over much of her body, including her face, legs and left hand, in what she described in a Feb. 4 Instagram post as “a freak accident.” The conflagration likely sparked when she clicked on a burner of the gas stove with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol open on a nearby counter. She said her robe protected about half of her body from the initial combustion, but as she struggled to remove the melting fabric, she rolled on the ground to try to “get the fire off my legs and hair.” As Dante attempted to quell the flames, she managed to open the door to let their dog outside and, using the SOS function on her iPhone, called 911.

She “knew it was bad,” she recalled by phone, when emergency medical responders told her they would immediately transfer her to Harborview, the nearest emergency center with a specialized burn unit.

Tacoma Fire spokesperson Joe Meinecke confirmed that crews were dispatched to a home in Central Tacoma on Feb. 2 just before noon. When they arrived about four minutes later, the fire had been “primarily extinguished” by the occupants, according to the report. Investigators categorized the incident as an “unintentional cooking fire with flammable liquid as a contributing factor,” said Meinecke.

Flames had not spread beyond the kitchen, which is an open area to the living room, but smoke damage permeated the rest of the house, added Hailey. She said they have an aquarium, so Dante was able to fill a nearby bucket with water to squash the flames, while also using the spray faucet on the sink.

She recalled seeing him collapse on the ground, thankful to have stopped the fire, only to look over at her in shock.

“He saved the house from completely burning down,” she wrote in a Feb. 4 Instagram post after sharing references to the fire in Instagram Stories, leading to “speculation and general concern.” A smaller image in the frame showed footage from their Ring security camera with flames running along an interior windowsill. In the next slide, Hailey danced playfully from her hospital bed to “Fire Burning” by Sean Kingston, her face and hands covered in mesh bandages.

Chef will recover as restaurant staff keeps going

Hailey returned home after initial treatment, but her pain was too intense and the wound care too demanding for her mother and Dante to handle on their own. After returning to the burn unit, she underwent surgery Saturday and is scheduled for another surgery this week. Her stay will last at least another two weeks, she said.

On Sunday, she shared on her personal Instagram page that her face was quickly improving and, in a spirit typical of the young chef who is known for being outspoken and wryly honest, joked that her eyebrows were already growing back. On the phone the next day, her voice indicated she was in decent spirits, but she admitted the process to recovery has already been “incredibly painful.” It requires daily scrubbing of burned skin with a special soap, she explained, and consistent refreshing of bandages. Medication quickly wears off, she added.

“I would not wish this on my worst enemy.”

Now, she continued, the physical effects had subsided just enough that her body was giving way to her mind and spirit.

“My personal pain — the emotional and mental pain is really hard to start to cope with,” she said by phone. “Today was the first day that I wasn’t in as much bodily pain. It’s really lonely being here.”

Guests can’t stay overnight at the hospital, she said. Dante has been making the 35-mile, hourlong trip to and from Tacoma each day to see her and continue navigating needs at home. Their entire kitchen is a loss, said Hailey, and some of the air ducts will need to be replaced. Although the flames themselves were contained to the open-concept kitchen and living space, smoke reached other rooms. Dante has packed up most of their belongings to transfer them to a storage unit, while also coordinating with insurance and taking care of their dog.

Hailey isn’t sure when she or Dante will return to Side Piece, but she applauded their close-as-family staff who, led by Turney and sous chef Sven Shibahara, will keep it going (Wednesday-Sunday, 8 a.m.-sellout). They have also organized a number of fundraising events in the last three years, donating thousands of dollars to Cedar River Clinics, a nonprofit reproductive health organization, as well as Advocates for Immigrants in Detention Northwest (AIDNW) and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. They have postponed a planned Feb. 20 fundraiser.

“Side Piece people should never underestimate how far and wide we stretch,” she said, adding that she was “really grateful” for the outpouring of support, emotional and financial.

“My major goal is to be able to hold my baby in a few months,” she said, and “making sure that I take time with my family and with my husband.”