Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 4, 1993                   TAG: 9305040409
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FLOYD                                LENGTH: Short

RAY WILL REBUILD HIS RESTAURANT

Ray Hatcher, owner of the popular burger, chicken and buffet restaurant, hopes to rebuild in the same location within 90 days.

"Hey, you got to be optimistic," Hatcher said Monday after meeting with insurance adjusters.

Hatcher awoke Sunday morning at about 9 to the smell of smoke. He woke his son and granddaughter at about the same time a passing motorist stopped to rouse the family after seeing smoke coming from the building.

Locals will tell you how Hatcher has sponsored softball teams, helped out community organizations and offered discounts to senior citizens.

"He's been awfully good to the community over the years," Gino Williams, Floyd County's commonwealth's attorney, said.

Those same locals are pitching in to help Hatcher get back on his feet.

Neighbors have brought clothes and other items for Hatcher, his son Stephen and his granddaughter.

And Hatcher said equipment has been donated to help tear down the burned remnants of the building and prepare for the new restaurant.

Hatcher lost a lot more than a restaurant when the building burned.

"I was born upstairs in that building 50 years ago," he said.

There was auto racing and other memorabilia from customers, trophies from softball teams he had sponsored and old pictures.

"It's just a total loss," Mickey Hatcher said of the restaurant, originally built by his father in 1939 and added on to over the years. The restaurant is about two miles north of the town of Floyd.

"It's quite a shock," Ray Hatcher said.