Campbell said the outreach from Richmonders was incredible — from customers and the restaurant suppliers down to city officials allowing their contractors to skirt parking restrictions in order to get to work. But it was the Richmond restaurant community that moved Campbell the most.

“Everyone reached out,” Campbell said. “I mean, everyone.”

He said other restaurant owners hired workers who needed work — often when they didn’t need staffing themselves.

“They said, ‘If we can help, we’re going to help. I want to applaud the Richmond restaurant community,” he said.

Initially, they thought the repairs would take a few months, but as crews got inside and began to assess the damage, Campbell said, the restaurant’s owner came up with a vision, just as he had in the 1970s. Instead of restoring the restaurant to its 1970s glory, Cable wanted to bring the building that once housed a tobacco warehouse, a sanitation supply store, a grocery warehouse, a paint company and, most famously, “the brightest jewel in the Shockoe Slip crown” — as The Tobacco Company was described in 1979 — into the 21st century.

“I’m so glad Jerry pushed for this,” Campbell said. “It’s more inviting now. This is a softer side of the fern bar. This is beautiful.”