VASSALBORO, Maine - Donna Goodrich drove up to the charred remains of the Grand View Coffee Shop and pressed a $10 bill into the palm of Amy Greenleaf, a University of Maine student who had worked as a topless waitress here before arson gutted the building behind her.

"I'm awfully sorry," said Goodrich, 53, a former waitress at a conventional eating establishment. "This is just terrible what happened."

Greenleaf, 20, smiled as she accepted the money, which Goodrich said her husband would augment later with a $50 check for a rebuilding drive being conducted from a small tent in the coffee shop's parking lot.

The coffee shop's owner, Donald Crabtree, is pledging to rebuild, restock, and reenergize an enterprise that created a tornado of controversy in Vassalboro; brought international attention to this small, sleepy town; and prompted Town Meeting this week to overwhelmingly approve an ordinance to regulate sexually oriented businesses.

"We ain't going nowhere," said Crabtree, who was asleep in the building and escaped with six others after the fire broke out. "We're going to put her back up, bigger and better. It's not the end of us yet."

Just how that will happen is anybody's guess. Crabtree said he has $700 to his name, no credit cards, and no plans to own one or take out a loan. Just clearing the site could cost as much as $30,000, and Crabtree had no insurance.

For now, he is relying on the generosity of former customers and strangers who have been pulling off Route 3 just north of Augusta to stuff cash into a large collection bin next to boxes of chocolate powdered doughnuts, tall containers of coffee, and piles of Danish.

"I've got to get the girls back to work," said Crabtree, who spends hours inside the cab of his truck, facing a jumble of stacked, blackened debris.

Earlier this week, Crabtree began offering coffee and doughnuts from a slightly damaged room inside the building. There, out of public view, the waitresses are topless. Outside, other waitresses pass the time fully clothed, chatting with former customers, pouring coffee, and collecting donations from all over the Northeast and even parts of Canada.

"I love my job," said Star Cunningham, 23, a Grand View waitress and single mother who cares for a 3-year-old boy and a disabled mother. "The customers are awesome."

The pay, nearly all through tips, has been outstanding for economically struggling mid-Maine, Cunningham said. Each week, she recalled, the work yielded a minimum of $500 in cash.

Greenleaf said she had been saving money to spend her junior year of college in Britain. If the Grand View cannot be rebuilt, that plan will hit a roadblock.