SALT Seafood Bar and Grill owners Wayne and Kerry Aspland possess a special kind of resilience.

Their Airlie Beach-based business was completely destroyed by a fire sparked in the kitchen in the early hours of Tuesday last week.

But with the support of their loyal staff and the community, the couple are hard at work with a road map to get their livelihood back on track by Christmas.

"People who know us would expect us to be back by Christmas and we will work tirelessly every day and do whatever it takes to make it happen," Mrs Aspland said.

This is not the first time the determined couple have been forced to re-build their business from scratch.

An electrical fault caused a fire which devastated the restaurant in September last year.

Mrs Aspland said the harrowing experience of 2015 left no illusions as to the scale of the task ahead.

"Last time us and some of our staff worked till 4am or 5am and that's what will happen again," she said.

"Until all the insurance accessors do their work, we will then really understand just how big the re-build will be."

Prior to the fire the business was booming with sales figures reaching new heights.

Mrs Aspland praised local businesses for supporting the restaurant and their staff through this second difficult time.

"The one thing the restaurant community has done is immediately contact us and our staff and absorb them," she said.

"One of our lads just left Capers (on the esplanade) and they gave him a job, one of our girls is at Barcelona and another one of our kids is at the Cosmos food van.

"People are being looked after because they are capable."

Staff yet to pick up new jobs have rolled up their sleeves to assist with the clean up.

An investigation is yet to determine the cause of the fire.