When disaster strikes it can be catastrophic or even crippling. Thankfully for the crew at Grape & Grain Tours of Bridgman a shocking Saturday incident outside of the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, while devastating will not keep them from their appointed rounds.
Grape & Grain Tours is a livery service that takes visitors to wineries, craft breweries and distilleries along The Makers Trail of Michigan’s Great Southwest aboard multi-passenger motor coaches making it easier for folks to visit multiple stops in a single day’s touring, sampling a broad array of offerings along the trail.
Unfortunately, shortly after arriving at Four Winds New Buffalo on Saturday an engine fire raced rapidly through the coach before the driver could even have a chance to grab the fire extinguisher on board and the coach was gutted right down to the chassis frame — totally destroyed.
Fortunately, nobody was on board at the time, and fortuitously, being early in the bullpen, the driver was successful in getting a surface lot parking space rather than under the overhang where considerably more damage could have occurred had the fire reached portions of the casino building.
Kim Brown-Knuth and her husband Grant Knuth are the owners and operators of Grape & Grain Tours, and while overwhelmed by the incident, they are already bouncing back with plans to meet tomorrow with insurance adjusters and traveling to purchase a replacement vehicle so they don’t miss a beat.
Kim tells me that they have just entered their highest and busiest season of the year and have bookings throughout the entire summer and into the fall that need to be fulfilled, however she says that shouldn’t be a problem as they will replace the totaled vehicle immediately. Plus they also have two other motor coaches that are continually in motion with tours as well.
After expressing great shock Saturday, Kim had already bounced back to her usual bubbly personality today and immediately sang the praises of the team at Four Winds for offering use of one of their buses to shuttle the clients who had gone with Grape & Grain to the Casino so they only missed one stop and all were going to be refunded their fees because of the inconvenience of the fire.
The 14-passenger motor coach is a charred hulk now, but even as the Knuths work to find a replacement Kim was also heartened by the tour bus community across the region with other purveyors, some of which are in direct competition with Grape & Grain, stepped up to offer help in the recovery period for the Knuth family.
The cause of the blaze is still a mystery as is the manner in which it literally raced through the coach and completely consumed the vehicle as can be seen in the photo accompanying this story on Moody on the Market.com provided by Kim.
You can learn more about the tour company by following them on Facebook and also through their website which can be viewed by clicking this link: https://www.grapeandgraintours.com/
With any luck the Grape & Grain Tour schedule will continue without missing another beat, for which everyone is grateful.
