Seffner Bob Evans Still Closed, Tests Continue, Workers Relocated

Results are "inconclusive" at the Bob Evans in Seffner, where geological testing has been under way since the restaurant was evacuated and closed June 9, after employees arriving to work for the morning shift reported cracks in the walls and floor.

"Results are inconclusive as to what's causing the damage at the restaurant," Margaret Standing, director of communications for Bob Evans Farms, said in a telephone interview June 12. "I feel like we should have all that information tomorrow."

According to the initial media report, from Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, the restaurant was to be closed for at least a couple days while engineers sought to determine what caused, or is causing, the cracks.

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokesperson Nacole Revette said in a Sunday interview that reports of possible sinkhole activity were premature.

"We're not saying sinkhole right now, there's structural integrity that has been compromised and that's all we know," she said. A possible cause, she added, is "washout of the site because of the elevated a mounts of rain we've had over the past week, and then the tropical storm on top of that."

Standing said soil samples have been taken from "around and inside" the building. With conclusive testing results, she added, "we hope to be able to make the determination of next steps, whether it's remediation or not."

As for the restaurant's 35 employees, they were given the option of "relocating to other restaurants for the time being," Standing said. "I'm pretty proud of what the [Bob Evans] team was able to do. They were able to place them all, including managers, at the restaurants of their choosing and allow them to continue to work."

The Bob Evans property in Seffner, at 11720 Tampa Gateway Blvd., has been roped off for testing. The road that connects Bob Evans to the adjacent hotel and to Gator Ford has not been closed. The hotel has been deemed sound, Revette said Sunday.

Fire offiicals were the first on the scene at Bob Evans on June 9, where they found "cracks in the walls and in the floor, about five feet into the entrance," Revette said. "The cracks on the outside walls are also mimicked on the outside of the building. You can see slanting toward that outer wall."

Revette noted that there is a "huge retention pond" to the north of the Bob Evans parking lot, where ground samples were to be drawn. "And because we've had so much rain over the past week, it could be the ground is unstable because of washout."

"Right now there is no active hole," Revette said. "That is what the testing is in reference to."

At the scene are the manager for construction for Bob Evans sites and representatives from the engineering company Bob Evans hired to test for structural integrity.

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