Over the hill at Opera in the Alps, chatter began in between the dulcet tunes and came to a crescendo when smoke billowed on the horizon.

Before long, the entire town of Beechworth was scrambling to confirm fears their only supermarket was indeed on fire. 

Simon Townsend had just finished his shift at Ritchies IGA and was enjoying a beer when he heard the news.

“I got a phone call from the duty manager straight away,” he said.

“When I got there, no firies or anything had turned up.

“But by later that Saturday night, every single staff member was standing out the front, watching.

“We’ve all put 10 years in that place, and just to watch it got up in smoke – all the hard work you’ve done, everything you’ve built up … it was heartbreaking.”

As Cheryl Taylor stood with the rest of the colleagues, the store manager’s thoughts dwelled on their jobs.

“The worst part was it didn’t look that major, standing outside with a little puff of smoke coming out,” she said.

“We thought, we’ll just get in there and hose it out – we’re going to have to spend three weeks scrubbing.

“But it just went on, and on, and on, and we were still there at one in the morning … it was just terrible.”

Fifteen trucks from as far as Bendigo tackled the blaze, finally getting it under control in the early hours of Sunday morning.

“By 9am the next day, we had organised a group barbecue for everyone at the lake,” Ms Taylor said. 

“I turned up a little bit late because I had all the food, and when I turned up there was people everywhere – every single person had turned up.

“We just stayed together until probably midnight.”

The next morning, Beechworth resident Josephine O’Conner ran into the Ritchies IGA building owner, Jim McCormack.

“We met up with Mr McCormack at mass and he told us what had happened, they were devastated,” she said.

“It was so sad, particularly for the child involved and for the whole town.”

The news a teenager was charged with arson, and later appeared in a closed court, made the $10 million aftermath just that much harder to deal with. 

“I was devastated when I found out, because there are a lot of elderly people in town, including myself,” Mrs O’Connor said.

“I’ve got access to a car but many used to use their wheelies to get there.”

“What now?” was the question on everyone’s lips.

No one expected, but in hindsight should have known, just how much the community would pull together to find an answer.

Before long, essentials began to pop up in Beechworth’s shopfronts.

Shelves of trinkets were replaced by cereals and the like at Mike's Bazaar and Wayne Borschman filled his Green Grocer to the brim.

“The chemist got a few extras, like baby formulas,” Mr Townsend said.

“Kells Kitchen got a few bits of dog food and Nelles Niche got things as well, a good half a dozen shops did so.

“The Lions Club did a free bus a couple days a week to Myrtleford and Yackandandah, just to help the older ones out that couldn’t drive.”

After two months of meetings between Indigo Council and Ritchies representatives, a temporary supermarket was secured thanks to Mick and Jo Westra’s offer to move their business, Plumbing Plus.

Four months later, and exactly six months after the fire, the Harper Avenue shop, half the size of the original, is smashing expectations from IGA head office.

“We’re doing significantly better than half (the sales of the old shop),” Ms Taylor said. 

“Head office were very conservative, but living and working in the local community, we knew that we would be supported.

“We haven’t been given a specific date for the new store, I was told eight to 12 months, but that’s really ball park.”

One person keen for Ritchies to return is Lucy Tozer, the owner of Hair Construction, which sits adjacent to the charred building.

“It gets eerie late at night, there used to be so much activity with people coming and going,” she said.

“We’re busy with regulars, but on Saturdays I’d say we don’t get the passing trade.

“It’s pretty bad, but it actually could have been a lot worse.

“When it first happened, there was a lot going on and all of a sudden there’s nothing.

“There hasn’t been work done in that supermarket for ages.”

The roof is off at the site but the McCormack’s are still in talks with insurance.

Staff take the floor plans for the new shop, hanging in the tearoom, as a good sign.

It’s something the team are excited about.

“They’re slightly increasing the size of the liquor store, we’ll have a bigger the fresh department and we’re actually having a butchery meat room as well so they’ll be cutting meat in Beechworth,” Ms Taylor said.

“That’s the most significant improvement and the whole floor plan has been revised to make it more open and modern.”

Out with the old and in with the new – but some things will stay the same.

This will include the sense of community in the shop and the only piece of the store that survived the fire. 

“It was a firetruck ride for kids that used to sit outside the supermarket,” Ms Taylor said.

“It was a centrepiece of our float in the Easter Parade and it will come with us to the new shop.”

The irony of that definitely isn’t lost on the people of Beechworth.