KINGSTON — Mother's Day was always the busiest holiday at the Kingston Inn, a landmark restaurant and bar next to the ferry dock.

In the summertime, tourists would fight over tables on the outdoor deck with its view of Puget Sound, and every Fourth of July the town's parade passed through the inn's parking lot.

But once the tourists were gone, the locals and commuters from the Kitsap Peninsula would reclaim the popular watering hole and the only place in this town of 1,600 that served breakfast.

"As soon as school started back up, you could almost hear everybody in Kingston just let out a sigh," said Greg Parypa, 35, a cook at the restaurant.

Yesterday, inn employees and townspeople were still taking stock of their loss after a fire tore through the building Tuesday night, gutting the restaurant that North Kitsap Fire & Rescue spokesman Michele Laboda called "a total loss."

An electrical malfunction sparked the blaze on the restaurant's partially-finished second floor, where a water heater, ice maker and other appliances were located. So far, fire investigators haven't found a direct link between the electrical problem and work that was being done to replace the restaurant's cedar shake shingles, Laboda said.

By yesterday afternoon, two area businesses — a restaurant and a nursing home — had contacted Laboda, offering jobs to the inn's 43 employees. The America Marine Bank branch in town also established the Kingston Inn Employees Fire Fund to help the restaurant's cooks and wait staff, she said.

Kingston Inn owner Mike Prestley could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Laboda said the restaurant was insured.

"This was the North Kitsap Social Club," Parypa said, standing in the parking lot with a group of co-workers as firefighters shoveled away soggy, sooty debris that included onions, potatoes and juice cans with the labels burned off. "It was just a place where North Kitsap gathered. Whenever we had big windstorms and the power would go out, people would come to the Kingston Inn, whether we were open or not."

Amanda Lane and Angela White worked the restaurant's morning shift Tuesday. A team of roofing contractors had started to replace the old, cedar shake shingles. Around 1 p.m., the lights started flickering, they said, and there was a funny smell, but no one could figure out where it originated. Tuesday night was "Top Sirloin Night," "and we were just slammed," said Jerame Johnson, 29, a line cook who was working when the fire broke out. "It was maybe around 7 p.m. and we smelt smoke, smelt that cedar smell. We went up there (to the second floor) and checked it out, but we couldn't see anything."

About 50 minutes later, an off-duty firefighter peered into the kitchen through an interior window and yelled at the employees to get out, Johnson said. "He told us to leave and maybe five minutes later, the building was in flames, and there was no going back in."

Lt. Pete Brummel, an off-duty firefighter with Eastside Fire & Rescue, was just getting off the ferry from Edmonds when he saw a 3-foot-by-3-foot section of the restaurant's roof in flames. Brummel, who was still in his uniform, yelled to a ferry worker to call 911 and raced to the restaurant.

Inside, he spotted a man wearing a Seattle Fire Department T-shirt.

"I walked in, he saw me, I saw him and I knew right away he was one of us and we were going to come up with a plan," Brummel said of off-duty Seattle firefighter Stan Smith, who was eating dinner at the restaurant.

The two evacuated about 20 patrons and employees, and once outside, "we shook hands as the place was burning," Brummel said.

By the time North Kitsap firefighters arrived a few minutes later, most of the restaurant was engulfed.

Brummel and Smith located a fire hydrant and helped get fire hoses hooked up. "I even worked the deck gun on one of the engines," Brummel said.

North Kitsap Fire & Rescue Chief Pete Nichol said he was "a little surprised there were no smoke alarms in the building."

The restaurant was a little grungy and there was a perpetual haze of cigarette smoke, but the portions were big and the staff was friendly, Nichol said. The restaurant's owner gave many local kids their first jobs.

"Certainly, it's a landmark," he said. "We're kind of hoping something gets rebuilt there."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com