POULSBO — When fire destroyed Mitzel’s restaurant Tuesday morning, the city lost more than an eatery. Much more.

Thirty-five employees were left without jobs as company officials decide whether or not to rebuild the restaurant and numerous community groups searching for new places to meet.

Since the fire, the community has rallied around the Mitzel’s employees and some have even made employment offers, said Marsha Rayburn, who was the general manager at the Poulsbo Mitzel’s.

“The community has been very supportive and there’s still hope of reopening,” Rayburn said.

Elmer’s Restaurant, Inc. vice president of development and administration Jerry Scott said the company is still reeling from the fire, but it has implemented a plan to take care of all of its employees.

“Our managers are being reassigned to different locations and all our hourly employees will continue to get paid at their regular rate for 90 days,” Scott said.

The local business community has been extremely helpful and forthcoming with employment offers for the displaced employees, he said.

As for the restaurant’s future, Scott said he is confident that a new restaurant will be built in the Poulsbo Village location.

“A lot of different community groups used that building and this is a huge gap that will have to be filled,” said Greater Poulsbo Chamber of Commerce Director Stuart Leidner.

The chamber itself had planned to have a breakfast meeting with a business networking group at the restaurant, but now it will have to look elsewhere, Leidner said.

“Other establishments in the community I’m sure will see some increases,” he said.

The restaurant was a cornerstone for Poulsbo Village and its parking lot was never empty, he said.

“It’s a very popular location and I’m hopeful Mitzel’s will be reestablishing their presence,” Leidner said.

Many of the firefighters who battled the blaze were regulars at the restaurant, which was minutes away from the fire station.

“The personal loss is greater than the building,” said Poulsbo Fire Department Chief Jim Shields. “For the employees who work there and the vendors that serve them, it’s a huge loss.”

Those employees need to find new jobs and ways to provide for their families until the restaurant is possibly rebuilt, Shields said.

PFD operations chief Tom O’Donahue said the fire has caused him to look for another place to have a meeting that he had scheduled for next week at the eatery.

“A lot of our firefighters enjoyed going there, so it’s a loss for us as well,” O’Donahue said.

For the Poulsbo Kiwanis Club the fire ended 20 years of meeting in the same location every Friday morning.

“We’ve been meeting there ever since it opened and we do have a lot of history there,” said Kiwanis President Angela Sell.

The club met at the Magnolia Cafe in downtown for this week’s meeting, but has yet to decide on an interim meeting place until Mitzel’s is hopefully rebuilt, Sell said.

“It’s just like family and we all took it very hard,” she said. “Every Friday, our waitress Ruby’s question was, ‘The usual?’”

The fire won’t stop the club from continuing its service to the community even though it won’t be meeting at Mitzel’s for a while, she said.

“We’re going to help them out as much as we can,” Sell said.

While community groups scramble to find new meeting places, the owner of the building has already applied for a demolition permit from the city, said Poulsbo Village manager Bev Lyon.

“Hopefully when the investigation is completed, we’ll be able to go ahead and clean it up,” Lyons said.

As for the rebuilding of Mitzel’s, Lyon said everything is still under discussion.

“I would anticipate knowing within the next few weeks,” she said.