Folks living above a downtown Nashville restaurant were out in the cold in the early morning hours after a fire broke out inside the restaurant.

The fire happened at the Ichiban Japanese Restaurant on 2nd Avenue North just after midnight, early Saturday morning.

Authorities said the fire caused quite a bit of damage to the restaurant and sent a lot of smoke into eight apartments upstairs.

Residents had to wait several hours to get back into their apartments because of the smoke.

There was no word on the exact cause of the fire.