Second fire hits Castle Rock's Hideaway Bar & Grill, person of interest held

A second fire ripped through Hideaway Bar & Grill before dawn Wednesday, leaving the Castle Rock restaurant a complete loss and putting investigators on the trail of a person of interest held on unrelated charges. Castle Rock Fire and Rescue crews were called to 600 Jerry Street at about 3:51 a.m. and had the blaze under control by about 5:15 a.m. No one was hurt, but an adjacent building suffered minor heat damage.

The fire hit less than 24 hours after an earlier blaze at the same business, a hit that left 21 employees temporarily out of work and badly damaged the longtime restaurant. Fire investigators said the Wednesday fire was not a rekindle of the earlier one, and the cause of either blaze remains unknown. Authorities have not said whether the person now being considered a person of interest is connected to the earlier fire.

For owners Becky and Robert Stroh, the back-to-back fires turned what had been a fast-moving cleanup into a much larger collapse. FOX31 KDVR reported that the second fire damaged the second floor and left the building a complete loss. The Strohs rent the space, and both they and the landlord plan to file insurance claims, meaning the financial fallout will not stop at the restaurant floor. It will also run through property coverage, lost business income and the wages of workers who suddenly have no shifts to cover.

The Stroh family has also launched a GoFundMe campaign to help employees with living expenses while the restaurant is closed. That support matters because Hideaway is not a new operation scrambling to find a footing. Bob and Becky Stroh opened the Castle Rock restaurant in March 2012, and some employees had been there since just months after it opened.

The double fire is also likely to intensify local questions about whether the case involves arson, a code problem or an isolated but devastating accident. Castle Rock officials say the town’s fire protection district covers more than 67 square miles, and the town put Stage 1 fire restrictions in place on April 9, 2026, because of dry weather and wind. Investigators have not tied those restrictions to the Hideaway fires, but the timing adds to the unease surrounding a business that was trying to recover from one blaze when a second one arrived and took away the chance of a quick reopening.