Fears of the worst were allayed on Sunday after staff returned to clean up and found no damage to the restaurant itself – it had all been confined to one of the four cooling units on the roof.

Owner Kee Pike could not put a timeframe on when he could reopen, but said “it should be fairly quick I’d think”.

Patrons were forced to clear out of the Townsend Street eatery after fire broke out about 8.30pm.

“It was just the smell to start with which alerted us and then, by the time we managed to find where it was coming from, you could start to see a little bit of smoke,” Mr Pike said. “It wasn’t until everyone was on the road that you could see up the roof, there was obviously a bit of flames.”

Firefighters arrived to see plumes of black smoke, but went in with breathing apparatus and quickly contained the fire.

Police cordoned off the street around the restaurant.

Albury Central station officer Glenn Kimpton said the cooling unit had been completely destroyed, meaning it was difficult to definitively say what happened.

The Border Mail reported on Saturday Albury had already suffered a string of fires caused by air-conditioning units being worked too hard during the heatwave.

“It’s just a seasonal thing,” Mr Kimpton said.

“Lucky they managed to get access to it pretty quickly.”

Mr Pike said he was thankful to emergency services and the public for their understanding.

“The staff did very well, everyone was very quick to act, there wasn’t any panicking – I was very proud of everyone for that,” he said.

“There’s never a good day for this to happen. A couple of days out from Valentine’s Day wasn’t that great, but it can’t be helped.”

Anyone with bookings will be notified if Hog’s Breath cannot reopen in time.

Staff and cleaners spent Sunday mopping up and airing out the building, but official inspections of the cooling unit would not happen until Monday.