A Montreal family is trying to pick up the pieces after a suspicious fire destroyed their restaurant.
Arson is suspected, and the three immigrant brothers who own it can’t understand why someone would target their business leaving them with nothing but a pile of ash.“We are very angry, because we are shocked and we don’t know what we’re going to do,” said 38-year-old Berat Saymadi, co-owner of Pizza Mozza in Oka, west of Montreal.
The three Kurdish brothers, originally from Turkey, both immigrated to Canada in the past two decades.
After years of working in Montreal restaurants, in 2022 they decided to open their own place in Oka along with a third brother.“We were working three brothers together 12 hours or 13 hours a day, every day, seven days a week. It was hard,” said 44-year-old Sedat Saymadi.
It took time, but they built up a good reputation and scored hundreds of glowing online reviews.
Their wives and children would come from Montreal to spend time with them. Sedat even got married at the restaurant.“We didn’t spend time with our families a lot. We spent time in here. We put all our effort in this restaurant,” said Sedat.
On Labour Day weekend, their countless hours of hard work went up in flames.