By David Gorn, Half Moon Bay Review
"If it takes millions of dollars, if it's starting from scratch, then we'll start from scratch."
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"I think he's really enthused about everything, and he wants to see Main Street survive. But it's too early to make a decision."
- Bev Cunha Ashcraft, on Cotchett's offer
Out of the ashes of Bev Cunha Ashcraft's shell of a store on Main Street came a few glimmers of hope this week.
"We're going to put it back together. We will rebuild, one way or another," Ashcraft said Friday. "Either I'll rebuild it, or I'll stay with whoever runs it."
One possible "whoever" is Joe Cotchett, a Burlingame-based attorney who already owns several properties on Main Street.
One day after Cunha's Country Grocery burned down, Cotchett offered to completely restore Cunha's store.
That restoration could be an expensive proposition - estimates for rebuilding Cunha's are between $2 million and $3 million - and it's uncertain just how much of that tab will be picked up by the insurance company.
"If it takes millions of dollars, if it's starting from scratch, then we'll start from scratch," Cotchett said.
Ashcraft smiled at the thought of Cotchett's offer: "I think he's really enthused about everything, and he wants to see Main Street survive," she said. "But it's just too early to make a decision."
Ashcraft and Cotchett have discussed a possible sale of Cunha's before. But it will take a week to even get an idea of the actual cost of rebuilding, and a week for the insurance company to estimate how much it's willing to pay.
If Ashcraft and Cotchett ever do work out some kind of deal, it would have to have a couple of specific provisions, Cotchett said.
"The majority economic interest would remain with Bev," he said.
"It will always be Bev's, and it will always be Cunha's Country Grocery, no matter what," Cotchett said.
"Even when she doesn't want it to be Bev's store anymore," he laughed, "it will be her store."
"That's Joe," Ashcraft said. "That's what Joe wants, that I stay, and that I stay majority owner," she said.
Cotchett said his ties to the Half Moon Bay area are strong. He was amazed, he said, to stand among the crowd Wednesday night while the fire burned Cunha's store to the ground.
"The support, the feeling, it was beyond anything I've ever seen," he said. "I stood here at midnight and watched people cry."
And it wasn't just employees or those directly affected by the fire, Cotchett said. "The whole community cried.
"And this is a community that will not let Cunha's not be rebuilt."
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