A fire tore through a first-floor business at 105 Cedarhurst Avenue in Lawrence-Cedarhurst on Tuesday morning, prompting a massive response of roughly 100 firefighters to a three-story building that also holds four other businesses and 11 apartments. The Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department received the call around 8:37 a.m. and had the blaze under control within about 45 minutes, with no injuries reported.
The ground-floor space is home to Central Perk Cafe, a kosher dining establishment that operates under the supervision of the Vaad HaKashrus of the Five Towns, according to the Cedarhurst business directory. The fire was contained to that single first-floor business, according to News 12 New York, whose reporting forms the bulk of what's publicly known about the incident so far.
Eight outside departments rushed to assist the Lawrence-Cedarhurst crews: Inwood, Woodmere, Hewlett, Valley Stream, Lakeview, Lynbrook, Long Beach, and Elmont fire departments all responded to the scene, per the same News 12 account.
Cause Still Under Investigation
What sparked the fire remains unclear. The cause is under investigation by both the Nassau County Fire Marshal's Office and the Nassau County Police Department Arson/Bomb Squad, the report notes. Joint investigations by those two agencies are routine protocol whenever a fire breaks out in a commercial space or multi-family residence in Nassau County, since the dual review is meant to determine origin and rule out criminal intent, according to Nassau County.
The building's layout underscores why fires like this one draw such a heavy response. Cedarhurst is one of the incorporated villages in Nassau County's Town of Hempstead that make up the Five Towns region, and its downtown includes shops and businesses, according to Lori and Associates. A fire that starts in a storefront with apartments overhead puts residents living just above at immediate risk, which is part of why getting the blaze under control quickly mattered so much here.
Second Major Fire in the Five Towns Since Summer
Tuesday's fire wasn't an isolated event for the area. Two months earlier, a two-alarm fire damaged Jerusalem II Pizza and neighboring storefronts on Central Avenue in nearby Lawrence, drawing 150 firefighters from multiple Five Towns departments, according to the LI Herald. That blaze forced temporary business closures and led the Nassau County Fire Marshal to investigate an electrical origin in the basement.
The Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department is an all-volunteer outfit of roughly 80 firefighters who respond to more than 1,800 emergency calls a year across Lawrence and Cedarhurst, according to the department's own account. Its roots trace back to the Washington Hook & Ladder Co., founded in September 1882, before the department reorganized under its current name in 1900 and built its stone firehouse in 1902 using materials salvaged from the original New York City subway excavation.
The department has handled a string of notable calls over the past year. In December 2025, LCFD and mutual aid companies responded to a residential fire on Spring Street in North Lawrence that injured two residents and one firefighter, per the Nassau County Police Department. In July 2025, crews contained a lightning-sparked attic fire at a three-story house on Juniper Circle North in about 30 minutes with help from six neighboring departments, and in August 2025 the Village of Lawrence Board of Trustees commended LCFD officers for breaching triple-locked doors in under a minute to resuscitate a resident in cardiac arrest.
No details have been released yet on whether residents of the 11 apartments above the cafe were displaced, or on the extent of damage to the other four businesses in the building. Hoodline will update this story as more information becomes available.
