Cigarette may have sparked NYC diner fire

A discarded cigarette may be to blame for a fire that shut down a busy midtown diner near Penn Station Sunday morning.

Diners were quickly evacuated from the Tick Tock Diner after the fire broke out about 10:15 a.m., restaurant owner Alex Sgourdos said. Firefighters had the blaze under control in just under an hour and there were no injuries, officials said.

Smoke poured from inside the diner as the facade above its southeast doorway burned, officials and witnesses said.

"Probably a cigarette," Sgourdos said as he surveyed the damage. "There's no electric here. . . . There's no other explanation."

The diner is on the first floor of the New Yorker Hotel, at the corner of 34th Street and Eighth Avenue.

A fire department spokesman said officials were still investigating the cause.

Employees hosed down the sidewalk outside the restaurant and swept away debris. Sgourdos said repairmen were starting to do work to fix the diner's ceiling. He said he hoped to reopen by Wednesday.

"It was a full house," he said. "Thank God everyone is OK."