Bertucci's waitress Sharon Shelton had just finished serving another table of customers halfway through her eight-hour shift at the restaurant when alarms started blaring. When the smoke cleared, the family never got their check, and Shelton never got a tip.

"They managed to abandon the restaurant," she said from the parking lot, "They probably just bailed."

An electrical fire broke out during the dinner rush Saturday night at the Bertucci's of 881 Walt Whitman Rd., sending dozens of patrons to their cars to escape their checks and leaving half-eaten meals covered in smoke.

The building was quickly evacuated and the Melville Fire Department arrived with several fire trucks and engines soon after. By 7:30, firefighters were inside the restaurant fighting the small blaze.

Kevin Wilson, manager of the Bertucci's, said he saw the fire break out under a podium across from the pizza kitchen.

"I thought it was a fire in the trash, but when I removed the trash, I saw it was an electrical fire," he said.

Another Bertucci's employee tried to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher. Christian Burdic, a server at the restaurant, said took the extinguisher from a patron, pointed it at the fire, and "gave it a few puffs."

But the fire flared up again and cast reflections on the stone walls that startled customers and waiters. He said it looked like the fire had spread into the wall.

"I killed the wires [leading to the outlet] but it kept going," Burdic said, an apron still around tied his waist while his coworkers jokingly called him "hero."           

Bertucci's hostess Sharelle Butler didn't see the fire break out. She was in the bathroom when the fire alarm went off. At first Butler thought it was nothing, until another coworker came running in.

"All of a sudden she comes in screaming 'Everyone's gotta evacuate!'" she said.

Monica Castillo was eating at the table across from the fire when it started.

"I saw the waiter rush out of the dining room and yell something, and then I saw an orange glow, smoke," she said. She added that after waiters tried to put it out, the glow got brighter, and that's when everyone was ordered out. "It was go time," she said.

She only got to eat half of her meatball.

Yet the staff of Bertucci's remained optimistic. The restaurant would have to be closed for the night at least, but they joked in the parking lot and laughed it off. As for Sharon Shelton, the waitress who saw her customers bolt for their cars with full bellies, she was just happy her shift was over a little early tonight.

"Eh, I get to go home now," she said with a smile.