CHILI BOWL RESURRECTEDLANDMARK SR EATERY SALVAGED AFTER FIRE

Ingram's Chili Bowl is rising from the ashes.

The well-known north Santa Rosa cafe, where truck drivers sat

elbow-to-elbow with stock brokers, waitresses called customers by their first

names and home-cooked chili covered every imaginable dish, will reopen after

Thanksgiving.

''It's family and I'm third-generation owner. I just couldn't see letting

it go. I just couldn't see letting an old thing like this die, not over a

fire,'' owner Bob Ingram said Monday.

The restaurant has been closed since a June 30 fire, which started in a bin

of greasy rags, burned a wall and much of the interior. What wasn't damaged by

fire was ruined by the smoke.

It was so bad it was given up for dead by Ingram, so bad the waitresses and

regular customers gathered for an impromptu wake in the restaurant parking lot

the next morning, serving coffee and muffins and consoling each other.

''It was gutted,'' Ingram said. ''The fire took out only one section of the

restaurant, but smoke destroyed the rest. We're starting from scratch again.''

Ingram said once the smoke cleared and he spent two weeks feeling sorry for

himself, he discovered the restaurant was salvageable and decided to put the

$54,000 insurance settlement and a lot more into remodeling.

And there was also the popular demand. Many of those doing the remodeling

are customers working for little or nothing.

''That's why we're here, to see it continue on,'' said Joe Cimino, owner of

Amps Electric and a longtime Ingram's customer, who is rewiring the

restaurant. ''We said, 'Hell, let's help out Bob.' That's my main thing, to

see it reopened.''

''We're doing it for the satisfaction of having helped keep a historical

restaurant open that all the locals enjoyed,'' said Sam Cimino, who has been a

regular since he was 9.

The restaurant was started by Ingram's grandfather, Clarence, in 1951, the

last of 40 Ingram's Chili Parlors he opened in California. Clarence passed it

to his son, Jack Ingram, who passed it on to Bob and his wife, Joanne, nine

years ago.

It is a landmark in north Santa Rosa, a plain reddish-brown building with a

simple ''Chili Bowl'' sign, until recently a sign that said ''Good Food,'' and

a parking lot that was full of pickups and expensive foreign cars.

The appeal was the tangy, meatless chili cooked 90 gallons at a time in a

small back room, in a ship's steam pot the size of a washing machine. It was

enough chili to last a week.

The chili was served on everything and at any time. The El Dorado was an

open-face cheeseburger covered with chili. The Pig in the Red was fried ham

and cheese covered with chili. Eggs in the Red was two fried eggs covered with

chili. Paisano Red was spaghetti covered with chili.

The cafe's appeal was also the family atmosphere. Most people knew

everybody else and had been coming there for years. Ingram said many of those

people ended up coming by his house because, after the fire, they had no place

else to go.

Ingram said the restaurant will be the same when it reopens. The menu will

be the same, chili will still cover everything and, if he can get them back,

there will be the same waitresses.

Only the restaurant will be spiffier. Except for new booths, tables and

chairs that were put in 10 years ago, it's the first time the cafe has ever

been remodeled. There is fresh paint, new linoleum and new Formica.

Ingram said they hope to reopen shortly after Thanksgiving or at least by

the first part of December. They will have the regular hours -- 6 a.m. to 2

p.m. weekdays. He is also thinking about opening Saturdays for the first time

to make up for lost revenue.

There is still some question about how long Ingram's Chili Bowl will

survive after it reopens. It sits on 18-1/2 acres owned by Fountain Grove

Plaza Associates, which is trying to sell it for a shopping center or offices.

Charles Evans, one of the partners, does not oppose Ingram's reopening, but

said a provision of Ingram's lease allows them to ask they leave in 60 days.

But Bob Ingram can only shrug at that.

''I think I will have a little party when we reopen,'' Ingram said.