Chris Bray knew something was wrong when he smelled smoke.

The owner of Asiago’s was in the process of closing the restaurant for the night on Tuesday when he smelled wood smoke.

“I thought, ‘man, I smell smoke,’” he said. “I called to John, who’s a policeman in town and who was in the restaurant, and said ‘come here, I want you to see something.’

“The first thing he said when he walked to the kitchen was ‘I smell smoke.’”

They looked, but the men could find no visible signs of a fire. Finally, Bray said he decided to look in the ceiling.

“As soon as I raised the ceiling tile, smoke came pouring out,” he said. “I knew we had to get it under control.”

The Troy Fire Department responded quickly, he said, and determined the fire started in the wall between the kitchen, the dining room and the restroom area of the restaurant.

“The Fire Department was terrific,” Bray said. “They got it under control, but we had smoke damage throughout the restaurant.”

On Wednesday, Bray had temporarily shut down his restaurant while repairs got underway. “We’re going to have to rebuild part of the wall,” he said.

He expects the restaurant to remain closed until Monday. “It’s a bad time for this to happen,” he said, but added that thankfully “no one was hurt.”