West side restaurant, El Charro, is closed after it caught fire Tuesday.

“We’ve got smoke damage, the fire actually extended beyond the structure into the attic area,” Evansville Fire Chief Keith Jarboe said.

The fire department was able to get into the attic and put out the fire. Neighboring businesses, 2nd Hand Chic and Wesselman’s, were also evacuated. Jarboe said Vanderburgh County Fire Department was alerted to the blaze by an alarm. They were on the scene in less than four minutes.

 “I could just see the tips of the flames shooting out of the back of the building… and just a bunch of smoke rolling out,” said Carey Broerman, who was shopping at Wesselman’s. “They (the fire department) were here very quickly.”

Jarboe said the building next to the Mexican restaurant, 2nd Hand Chic, also had some smoke damage but the majority of the damage was confined to El Charro.

“We did pull a second alarm which actually got another set of companies to come in, mostly just precautionary… you look at these types of buildings, it’s open attic area and we wanted to ensure, especially with having a business open that we had enough people on scene and that we had proper resources in case the fire had extended beyond the building of origin,” Jarboe said.

“It’ll (El Charro) be a loss to the West side, a lot of people love it,” Broerman said.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.