For more than a decade, Pier 19 has been a staple at South Padre Island.

Ray De La Rosa, an accounts manager at the restaurant, said it was always busy.

"It was a location where if you were coming to the island you would go to Pier 19,” De La Rosa said. “You were always going to get an hour and a half wait because it was just always that busy."

A fire completely destroyed the restaurant early Wednesday morning.

RELATED: 'A total loss:' Overnight fire destroys Pier 19 restaurant on South Padre Island

Although the fire also left dozens of people without a job – De La Rosa said they have a plan.

"We have multiple locations, so we're going to try to move them around to offer them a job at other locations," he said.

A number of people stopped by to see what’s left of the restaurant and shared their memories of it. 

Larry Sovaski and his wife said they’ve been coming to the island for over 10 years and frequented Pier 19.

"It's just a normal thing that we do every morning,” Sovaski said. “We knew the people that worked there, the people who run the place; they're so nice."

Three people lived in the apartment on the top floor of the building. Matt Harelik and his two roommates weren’t in the building when the fire broke out.

"We saw the lights, red and blue lights as we were driving up,” Harelik replied. “We said boy we hope that's not our place - lo and behold it was, and they stopped us out at the RV park. We could see the flames from there."

Harelik said he and his roommates lost all of their clothes and some personal items.

De La Rosa said he's confident Pier 19 will be back better than ever.

"There's ashes and there's rubble or whatever, but we talked to the owner and our plans are to come back,” De La Rosa said. “And hopefully we come back with a nicer place - a bigger place - something that will accommodate everybody because it was a small place."