The building housing the China Palace restaurant and multiple apartments on West Jefferson Street was hit by fire on Jan. 10. The restaurant has not reopened since the blaze. Butler's code enforcement officer John Evans said he is working with officials of Alpine Apartments, which owns the building.

Bryan Hutchens isn't having much luck finding a place to relocate his restaurant, Hutch's Diner, which he lost to a fire a little more than one year ago.

The Center Avenue restaurant was a popular breakfast venue in Butler until water, heavy smoke and soot from the fire two stories above rendered it unsafe and unusable.

“There are a ton of people craving my pancakes,” Hutchens said on Tuesday.

Hutchens, who vowed after the fire to reopen at another site after nearly two years in the Center Avenue site, has been steadily looking for a new location.

Buildings that are the right size have undesirable or insufficient parking and are too expensive, while buildings that have satisfactory parking are too small for his operation.

“I'm still working on it,” Hutchens said. “I haven't found anything suitable in Butler.”

He said he checked out a few properties on Main Street, but knows his clients don't want to face parallel parking and fighting to find a space in the morning.

“I'm still keeping my eyes and ears open,” said Hutchens, who took a job with a local company to have an income now that his dreams of owning a restaurant have gone up in smoke.

A year after the blaze, Hutchens is still working with the insurance company regarding what will be covered.

“It's been a mess,” he said.

Hutchens most recently looked at the former Gutierrez Mexican restaurant on West Cunningham Street, which was too small.

“I'm still plugging along trying to find a place,” he said. “People keep telling me to get a food truck.”

Hutchens has neither embraced nor rejected that suggestion as yet.

The multistory building that housed Hutch's Diner was owned by Clair Boring and Joe McKain. It was razed a few days after the March 26, 2017, fire.

The building also housed eight apartments. No tenants were injured in the blaze.

Another restaurant that closed due to a fire was the China Palace on West Jefferson Street.

The longtime Chinese restaurant suffered heavy smoke and water damage on Jan. 10, when a fire tore through the west side of the two-story building, which is owned by Alpine Apartments.

While a firewall in the center of the building caused only smoke and water damage on the east side of the building, China Palace was on the first floor of the west side just below the heaviest flames on the second floor.

The entire building had 14 apartments on the first and second floors.

John Chen, who owned the restaurant with his wife, Tong, had to shoo two customers and several employees from the building when smoke became visible on the ceiling.Chen said at the time of the fire that he hoped the building would be repaired so he could reopen China Palace.“I like it here,” Chen said in January. “This is a good building.”While Chen could not be reached for comment this week, Butler's code enforcement officer, John Evans, said he is working with Alpine Apartments officials regarding the building.He said a walk-through showed structural damage to the building, so the owners must hire an engineer to determine what work would be necessary to rebuild the structure.“They are still in the discovery stage,” Evans said.The owners of Alpine Apartments did not return calls from the Eagle regarding their plans for the building, which has housed Exile Records, Bauer Pharmacy, LCR Carry Out Restaurant, a bakery and a fruit market in its 100-plus years of existence on West Jefferson Street.

The building housing Hutch's Diner on Center Avenue burned in March 2017. The structure was razed a few days later. Hutch's was a popular breakfast location.