If every restaurant in town lost business due to Saturday's historic  snow storm, then Equinox suffered a double whammy over the weekend: Todd and Ellen Gray's regional American gem on Connecticut Avenue took it on the chin from two elements, fire and water.

A fire hit the place early Friday morning, followed shortly thereafter by that mountain of snow.

“How do you like that?" says Ellen Kassoff Gray, co-owner and GM at Equinox. "Two acts of God in the same day. We woke at 3 o’clock responding to a fire and went to bed at 3 o’clock that night with an inch of snow falling an hour. It’s crazy.”

“The forces of the universe are making me re-evaluate my perspective, for sure,” she adds.

The Grays' re-evaluation also extends to their plan to temporarily shift operations to the Aria Trattoria banquet room in the Ronald Reagan Building.

“That was just a temporary solution for Friday," Ellen Gray says. "They were kind enough to have us on Friday, but I think we’re just sort of taking it shift by shift."

Hold on. Did the media, including me, report that incorrectly? Weren't you planning to shift all Equinox operations to Aria until you reopened? Or was it always a one-day thing?

“We didn’t know it was a one-day thing until we got through it, because we were making decisions hourly. It’s hard to say definitively, ‘This is what it’s going to be’ when you’re in a situation like that, because who knows," Ellen Gray says. "They lent us their space to work out of, and they still will. We could still do our prep and stuff over there, if we decide to go forward. We might not even do any service. It all just depends on what we decide. Like I said, everything is on a day-to-day [basis]."

In the meantime, the couple has been doing an inventory at the restaurant, going through the dishes and kitchen equipment and inspecting the carpets to see what's salvageable. The early assessment is not pretty. Everything's "gone," Ellen Gray says.

All of it, even the carpets?

"Well, the carpet had two inches of water from the firemen. Once that’s in the carpet and it’s saturated like that, it’s ruined," the GM says. "And it smells, so we got to get that out of there. I want to make sure that the smoke smell gets out. It doesn’t really mix well with Todd’s risotto.”

The couple's own damage assessment is also far higher than the one by the D.C. Fire Department, which put the figure at $30,000 to $40,000. (See pictures of the damage here.)

"I don’t know what D.C. Fire Department was talking about, $30,000 or $40,000," Ellen Gray says. "That was kind of funny. We read that and we were like, ‘Huh? I don’t think so.’ It’s more like $300,000.”

So will insurance cover everything, including any loss of business?

“I believe so," Gray says. "Of course, my agent couldn’t get into work today, so I couldn’t talk to her. It’s like, ‘All right, this is enough. I’ve had it.’ I can’t reach anybody at my insurance company’s office, so I don’t know exactly what our coverage [is]."

Still, the Grays hope to reopen in six weeks.

The ceiling to the private dining and wine room was destroyed.

Ellen Kassoff Gray believes three things prevented the early morning fire at Equinox from destroying the well-regarded restaurant: an in-house fire alarm system, the weekly degreasing of the kitchen's hood, and an alert security guard who smelled smoke around 3 a.m.

Just the weekly hood cleaning alone probably "saved us from total loss," says the co-owner and general manager. "If they didn't do that, [the restaurant] would have ignited" from the grease.

Regardless, the D.C. Fire Department estimates the damage to Equinox at between $30,000 and $40,000.

This afternoon, as chef and co-owner Todd Gray was prepping for dinner at Aria Trattoria in the Ronald Reagan Building, where Equinox will be temporarily housed during repairs, Kassoff Gray remained at the downtown restaurant to field calls, direct work crews, and deal with fire and insurance representatives.

While the damage is relatively minor compared to what might have been, Kassoff Gray was still painfully aware of the loss she and her husband did suffer. She figures they lost about $15,000 worth of wine from the private dining room (pictured above). They have lost the use of their kitchen for who knows how long, and they've lost power, which worries Kass0ff Gray as the winter storm rolls in tonight.

And who knows yet what's still salvageable from the kitchen: dishes? pots? pans? Smoke may have ruined much of the dishware and equipment permanently. Then there's the dining rooms, which the Grays just renovated about 18 months ago. The relatively new carpets were soaked with water from the firefighting crews. Blowers, connected to power outlets outside the restaurant, were trying to dry the carpets out.

But there's one thing that Todd and Ellen Gray didn't lose today, and that's business. Five cars pulled up to Equinox around 7 a.m. today, just an hour after the last fire department unit had left, and started transporting ingredients to Aria, where Todd Gray had moved a major Christmas party planned for 11:30 this morning. The party was for 65 people.

"He didn't let the fire deter him," Kassoff Gray says. "I know it sounds corny heroic...but he didn't want to let them down."

The Grays will continue to work out of Aria until the city allows the couple to reopen Equinox. All employees will continue to work at the downstairs dining room at Aria during the transition; the temporary room holds about 65-70 people, whereas Equinox holds about 85.

More pictures after the jump.

Crews were trying to repair one of the two generators damaged during the fire.

Ellen Kassoff Gray handled damage control at Equinox while Todd Gray cooked for customers at Aria in the Ronald Reagan Building.

The ceiling in the kitchen is ruined. The stove and hood, where the fire apparently started, are behind this dish shelf and prep table.

The ceiling as seen looking out from the kitchen.

Kassoff Gray isn't sure how much of the kitchen equipment, including the dishware, is salvageable. The good news is that the couple's insurance should cover all their loses.

Industrial blowers were brought in to help dry out the soaked carpets.

Dining room tables (in the back of this picture) were being used to hold wine bottles and other items saved from the fire scene.

Crews dined on take-out pizza while trying to restore power at Equinox. "It was the first time pizza has ever been delivered to Equinox," Kassoff Gray says.

The extension chord provided the only power available at Equinox this afternoon.

Well, false alarm. Elizabeth Carp, marketing manager at the Mandarin Oriental, says it's all quiet on the southwestern front at the hotel. No fire, no smoke, no nothing. A D.C. Fire Department spokesman confirms Carp's information. There's no report of a fire this morning at the Mandarin or even nearby.

As you were.