Bianka Escudero was at the host stand at El Patron Tequiliera restaurant Tuesday afternoon, taking a reservation, when all of a sudden she saw fire come from the street.

An explosion on High Street blew out the glass in some second-floor windows above the downtown restaurant. Escudero, who is pregnant and due next week, said she watched the fire hit the restaurant’s window. She could feel the heat from the flames.

“If that glass would’ve broke, I probably wouldn’t have been here today,” she said. “Something really bad could’ve happened.”

Akron firefighters check a grate on South High Street Tuesday next to the old Gothic Building
Akron firefighters check a grate on South High Street Tuesday next to the Gothic Building downtown after an explosion shot up through the grate and blew out the glass in some second-floor windows. El Patron Tequiliera restaurant is housed on the first floor of the building. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)

Escudero and her husband, Luis, are the owners of the Akron restaurant. Luis Escudero said he thought the cause of the explosion was an underground Ohio Edison transformer that seemed to be damaged. Ohio Edison employees in hard hats arrived after Akron firefighters.

A spokesperson for First Energy told Signal Akron in an email on Tuesday evening that “crews are on scene to investigate what happened and make repairs to our underground equipment that was affected. The incident did not cause any outages for our customers.”

Luis Escudero said he saw debris and glass and ran inside the building, at the intersection of South High and East Mill streets, to make sure nothing internal was damaged. The four-story Gothic Building, which also houses a law firm on the second floor and apartments upstairs, was built in the early 1900s by architect Frank O. Weary, said Tony Troppe, a partner in the company that owns the building.

Akron-area developer Tony Troppe stands just outside the Gothic Building on South High Street downtown Tuesday after an explosion blew out the glass in some second-floor windows. El Patron Tequiliera restaurant is housed on the building's first floor.
Akron-area developer Tony Troppe stands just outside the Gothic Building on South High Street downtown Tuesday after an explosion blew out the glass in some second-floor windows. El Patron Tequiliera restaurant is housed on the building’s first floor. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)

At least two broken windows could be seen above the restaurant; shattered glass littered the street. Firefighters Tuesday afternoon removed a sidewalk grate in the area that seemed to be the site of the explosion.

“It was just that Ohio Edison infrastructure that caught fire, exploded, just scared the crap out of everybody,” Luis Escudero said.

Lt. Robert Langston, the Akron Fire Department’s public information officer, said that he suspected an underground vault with utilities was the culprit but didn’t immediately have more information about the cause of the explosion. Stephanie Marsh, a spokesperson for the city, said there were no injuries reported.

Luis Escudero, owner of El Patron restaurant
Luis Escudero, owner of El Patron Tequiliera restaurant in downtown Akron, stands outside the Gothic Building after an explosion on South High Street blew out the glass in some second-floor windows above the restaurant Tuesday. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)

The call came in at 4:32 p.m., Marsh said. Ladder 4 responded to the scene, but traffic remained open and moving. Bianka Escudero said she evacuated patrons to the back of El Patron but had no plans to close for the night. On the sidewalk outside El Patron, people from nearby buildings milled in the street, talking about how they had felt the explosion.

Bianka Escudero said it happened so quickly, she couldn’t think.

“I thank God I didn’t get injured,” she said. “I was like front-faced, could’ve been killed by that.”

Akron firefighters and police stand outside the Gothic Building on South High Street
Akron firefighters and police stand outside the Gothic Building on South High Street Tuesday after an explosion shot up through the grate (shown open at lower center) and blew out the glass in some second-floor windows, shown above. El Patron Tequiliera restaurant is housed on the first floor of the building. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)
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Government Reporter (he/him)
Doug Brown covers all things connected to the government in the city. He strives to hold elected officials and other powerful figures accountable to the community through easily digestible stories about complex issues. Prior to joining Signal Akron, Doug was a communications staffer at the ACLU of Oregon, news reporter for the Portland Mercury, staff writer for Cleveland Scene, and writer for Deadspin.com, among other roles. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hiram College and a master’s degree in journalism from Kent State University.

Economics of Akron Reporter (she/her)
Arielle is a Northeast Ohio native with more than 20 years of reporting experience in Cleveland, Atlanta and Detroit. She joined Signal Akron as its founding education reporter, where she covered Akron Public Schools and the University of Akron.
As the economics of Akron reporter, Arielle will cover topics including housing, economic development and job availability. Through her reporting, she aims to help Akron residents understand the economic issues that are affecting their ability to live full lives in the city, and highlight information that can help residents make decisions. Arielle values diverse voices in her reporting and seeks to write about under-covered issues and groups.