Yiorgo Aretos, left, and Alissa Rodriquez work at Sonio's Cafe and Rotisserie, which reopened in November 2004 after being damaged by fire. Photo by John Locher.

It took eight years for Yiorgo Aretos to build his customer base to about 100,000 at Sonio's Cafe and Rotisserie, a family-owned restaurant at Charleston and Valley View boulevards specializing in chicken recipes.

That was destroyed in a matter of hours in 2003 when an electrical fire gutted his 2,400-square-foot establishment and caused more than $1 million in damage.

Rebuilding has been an uphill battle all the way, Aretos said.

His insurance company, Capital Indemnity, hired a private adjuster in Las Vegas and paid $400,000 on the claim, less than half its value, Aretos said. He said structural damage alone topped $600,000, not including tables and chairs, kitchen equipment and supplies.

With Baker Construction doing the work, Sonio's reopened in November 2004 and has struggled to recapture the business it once had.

The restaurant sits at the corner of a busy intersection, but motorists can easily miss Sonio's undersized signage on the building facade. Aretos said the commercial center's new owner won't allow the previous sign that wrapped around the building.

"So we have a landlady that's fighting us. She did not make the process easy for us to reopen," he said.

"We're an anchor tenant. We're a draw for the location. Wouldn't you think as a landlord your mentality would be to aid and assist your anchor tenant to get up and running?" he asked.

Aretos said five businesses were affected by the fire and Sonio's was the only one to return.

"We were down for 14 months and we were still able to open our doors again," he said.

"We had great customer support. People were e-mailing me all along asking what they could do to help. We're not going to let any of this hold us down. We're going to go a step further and franchise."

Aretos said he gets customers from Green Valley, North Las Vegas and Summerlin who constantly ask when he's going to open Sonio's in their area.

The fire taught the 29-year-old business owner two important lessons.

First, make sure you're fully insured. Meet with a certified public accountant and come up with an accurate figure of what's being insured. Contact a private adjuster and ask them how the insurance company is going to approach your claim.

"The adjuster is more important than the broker for business insurance," Aretos said.

Second, make sure you have a clear understanding of everything in your lease agreement. Spend money for an attorney to not only review the agreement, but discuss with you the responsibilities of the tenant and the landlord.

Matt Goldstein of Greenspan Adjusters in Las Vegas said insurance companies have their own interests in mind when they go after business. He recommends sitting down with the insurance broker at least once a year to review policy coverage.

"The guy comes into your restaurant on day one and looks around and you never see him again," Goldstein said. "If you add six new pieces of equipment at the restaurant, you may have a half-million dollar investment and your broker doesn't know about it."

If sales triple, the business is probably going to incur more overhead costs. All of that needs to be factored into the insurance policy, he said, along with loss of income coverage, which pays for expenses while the business is down.