At around midnight on a Friday during Ramadan, we received an emergency call from Salash Kitchen, a Turkish halal restaurant in East London. A fire had broken out in the kitchen. Fortunately, the fire had already been extinguished. But smoke had travelled far beyond the kitchen, leaving soot and smoke residue across the restaurant’s furniture, upholstery, floors and other surfaces. Under normal circumstances, a job like this would already require careful planning. This one came with another problem:
A wedding was booked at the restaurant for the following evening.
It was also the beginning of the Eid al-Fitr celebrations. Cancelling the event at such short notice was something the restaurant desperately wanted to avoid. We had only a matter of hours to help get the venue back into a usable condition.
When We Arrived, the Scale of the Smoke Damage Became Clear
I arrived at Salash Kitchen at around 1 a.m. The damage was more extensive than we had expected from the initial call. Smoke residue had settled throughout the restaurant. Some of the furniture had originally been bright yellow, but the layer of soot and residue was so heavy that parts of it appeared almost grey. And there was a lot of furniture to deal with.
The restaurant had approximately 100 individual chairs, as well as several large seating units capable of accommodating around 20 people each. Each upholstered piece needed attention. With the wedding approaching, there was no possibility of leaving the job until morning. I called our team and asked them to arrive by 2 a.m. They did, and we started immediately.
Cleaning Around 100 Chairs Through the Night
From approximately 2 a.m. until midday, the team worked almost continuously. The aim wasn’t simply to make the chairs look better. We needed to remove the contamination left on the upholstery while being careful with the materials and getting the furniture ready for use as quickly as realistically possible. Piece by piece, we worked through the restaurant.
The chairs were cleaned, the larger seating areas were treated, and the visible smoke residue was tackled throughout the affected areas. But as the night progressed, another challenge became just as important as cleaning:
drying time.
The Winter Weather Made Drying a Challenge
This happened during winter. Under normal conditions, freshly cleaned upholstery needs sufficient time and airflow to dry properly. Here, waiting for natural drying wasn’t an option. The restaurant needed its seating back for the wedding. So we adjusted the extraction process to remove as much moisture as possible from the upholstery. Where necessary, we went over the furniture with the extraction equipment a second time, pulling out additional moisture after cleaning.
This helped reduce the amount of water left inside the upholstery and gave the furniture the best possible chance of drying within the limited time available. We weren’t trying to rush the cleaning itself. We were trying to make every stage of the process work within a deadline that could not move.
By Midday, the Restaurant Had Been Transformed
By around midday, after roughly 10 hours on site, the difference was dramatic. Furniture that had looked dull and grey under layers of smoke residue had regained its original appearance. The upholstered seating had been cleaned and extensively extracted, and the restaurant was in a very different condition from the one we had walked into at 1 a.m.
Most importantly, Salash Kitchen was able to continue preparing for the wedding rather than dealing with the aftermath of the fire. For the restaurant, that was what mattered.
Why This Job Was Different
Most professional upholstery cleaning jobs can be scheduled in advance. This one couldn’t. There was no opportunity to return in a few days. There was no spare day for the furniture to sit untouched. And with approximately 100 chairs plus large seating units affected, this wasn’t a small emergency clean either.
We had to assess the situation quickly, bring in enough people and equipment, adapt the cleaning and extraction process to the conditions, and keep working through the night. It is also a reminder that after a fire, extinguishing the flames is only the first stage of recovery.
Smoke can travel throughout a property and leave residue on surfaces and fabrics far away from the original fire. Upholstered furniture can be particularly challenging because both the cleaning method and the amount of moisture introduced need to be carefully controlled.
From a Smoke-Damaged Restaurant at 1 a.m. to a Wedding Venue the Next Day
When we first arrived at Salash Kitchen, the restaurant was covered in the aftermath of a kitchen fire and approximately 100 chairs needed attention. A wedding was only hours away. By midday, after working through the night, the cleaning was complete and the restaurant could move forward with preparations for the event. Some cleaning jobs are memorable because of the size of the property or the condition of the furniture.
We’ll remember this one because there was simply no second chance to get the timing right
