Around 12:30 a.m. Jan. 30, Todd Rauthenberg lay in his bed drifting off to sleep with the television on when his phone rang. “This better be good,” he remembers thinking.

It wasn’t.

“Are you Todd Rauthenberg?” the person calling asked. “Because there is a fire at your restaurant.”

Rauthenberg arrived at Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Que several minutes later, having smelled smoke from the Main Street overpass. Firefighters fought 15-foot flames that shot out of the roof of the Mishawaka restaurant into the dark sky.

The bitter cold temperature and below freezing wind-chill prompted the general manager to head back home for his boots. Rauthenberg’s toes felt numb after he stood outside and walked around in water and ice for more than an hour.

“It looked like the Notre Dame footballs burst from the heat and then froze in their shadow boxes on the walls,” Rauthenberg now remembers.

The fire could’ve been worse.

An opening in the roof near the hostess stand, a skylight that had been covered and concealed over the years, held the fire to the front. The skylight, which served as a chimney that night, had been used back in the day of Jeremiah Sweeney’s restaurant. The building later turned into a Colorado Steakhouse.

“The skylight let the smoke out and probably saved the restaurant from being a complete loss,” says Rauthenberg.

But water damage was a whole other story.

“When you think fire, you think flames. You don’t think about water damage,” he says.

About four to five inches of water covered the floor, a combination of water firefighters pumped inside to extinguish the blaze and restaurant sprinklers. After removing the top flooring layers, it still took two weeks for several heavy-duty industrial fans to dry everything, Rauthenberg says.

But that was just the beginning.

The recent break in the weather finally allowed local disaster restoration company First Response to remove part of the roof and front parapet Friday morning so the origin of the fire can be determined, and so restoration inside can begin. Fire investigators, insurance companies and other officials were on site for the roof removal late last week.

Renovations may take as many as several weeks to complete. First Response owner Tony Sergio says he estimates the restoration could take several weeks.

Steve Shaw, president of operations for the owner of the Mishawaka Famous Dave’s, hopes the process is completed for a reopening in late April. Shaw visited the restaurant Friday afternoon from Mercedes Restaurants corporate offices in Peoria, Ill.

“It is a process. We don’t want any lingering smells, except barbecue,” Shaw says.

“This is the first fire I’ve been to of this magnitude and I’ve been in the business for 30 years. And what makes this so unique is how fires usually start in the kitchen, and this started outside,” he says.

It might not look like much has to be done from the outside, especially if you’re just driving past the restaurant on Grape Road and see the tarp covering the roof.

But if you consider all the furniture, fixtures and flooring, in addition to the decor and memorabilia that incurred smoke or water damage, it will take some time to put Famous Dave’s back together.

There are no tables or chairs.

No lights in the front except for a string of temporary lanterns.

The restrooms are gutted, there are floor board sections waiting to be installed, and there is still a hint of smoke — from the fire, not the barbecue kind — that lingers.

In the meantime, the employees — who are being compensated for their lost wages during the closure — either are helping around the restaurant or volunteering time in the community with such organizations as Habitat for Humanity and Feed the Children.

“I’m missing the music. We are missing the music and laughter,” says Drea Novotny, who serves as a manager’s assistant, bartender and waitress. “I like to think I help make customers feel appreciated.”

Rauthenberg admits that it feels strange to have experienced such a role change — from general restaurant manager to disaster relief coordinator. “While I wouldn’t wish this on anybody,” he says, “the experience is invaluable.”