After two electrical fires 40 days apart from each other, Lev Kitchen,  in the Ithaca. Commons, has re-opened its doors to the public with the support of the community and the help of its employees.

In December 2022, Lev Kitchen experienced a fire that started in the ceiling of the first floor but was permitted by the Ithaca Electrical Inspector to continue operating.

However, in February, a second electrical fire took place in the kitchen walls causing the restaurant to close for a month.

Owners Ben Platoke and Yen Wu who first opened the restaurant back in April 2022, said they didn’t expect to encounter issues with the fires despite months of success before the two incidents.

Platoke said that the reason behind the fires was because of the old wiring from the New York State Electric and Gas.

“It had nothing to do with anything in our space,” Platoke said. “NYSEG has wires that supply energy and that supply energy, and they had one wire go bad and that compromised everything in our building.”

After multiple attempts to reach out to NYSEG did not comment on the matter.
Platoke said that the Ithaca Fire Department and The Ithaca Building Department helped to ensure the building’s safety so that it could reopen with no further issues.

“We went through a lot of steps with them to make sure the space is safe,” Platoke said.

The community chimes in

To support their employees, Platoke and Wu decided to set up a Go Fund Me page. And with the support of the Ithaca community, they raised $4,751 from their $4,000 goal.

Wu said that the insurance they had at the time didn’t support employee wages. But has changed its insurance policy to ensure that each worker is supported.  

“We know a lot of restaurant workers live paycheck to paycheck and understand that they have bills to pay,” Wu said. 

Ken Birman, professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University and one of the donors said he wanted to help Lev Kitchen because it is one of the few options in Ithaca that offer Middle Eastern food.

 “To my wife and me, this is part of what makes Ithaca such a great place to live, “Birman said. “When we read about the plight of their staff, we wanted to help tide the staff over until the shutdown was resolved.” 

Employee Irin Chitman said she benefited from the Go Fund Me page because she is international from Thailand, she said she could not apply for unemployment like some of the rest of the employees.

“That definitely helped me a lot, especially the first where there was no way I could find work right away in that one week,” Chipman said. 

The road to restore.

Platoke said that he is grateful that Lev Kitchen is back and hopes to continue to serve and impact the community.

“We are a lot more comfortable with the operation now,” Platoke said. “We got through some hiccups in the first year and learned how to run this efficiently.”

“This whole concept of doing a restaurant is an egotistical pursuit able to just to go pursue your own passion, but then once it is existing and now that we have employees that dependent on us, our primary obligation is to our employees to ensure that they are taken care of,” he added.