COSTA will open tomorrow after firefighters were called to the coffee shop in Stroud High Street to put out a fire on Friday.

One crew from Stroud attended at 7.20am when an air conditioning unit caught fire just after the shop opened.

Wearing breath masks they managed to extinguish the blaze with one jet hose after about 30 minutes.

A stallholder at Vintage Mary Stroud in the Shambles Market told the SNJ how she saw the smoke over the archway behind Costa, in front of the entrance to The Retreat.

“You could see the orange flames reflected in The Retreat’s glass windows,” she said.

“There was black smoke billowing out of the top.

“What was most amusing was that the customers were evacuated from Costa but then they just sat on the tables outside drinking coffee until the fire service arrived.”

A small trail of smoke could be seen rising high in the sky over Stroud.

Ken Stevens who runs the Hania Cheeses stall and who had called the fire service to raise the alarm narrowly missed getting hit by a bit of flying metal.

A gas supply near the fire was isolated and the coffee shop closed while the fire brigade carried out safety checks. They were at the scene for about two hours.

No one was hurt in the blaze and the cause of the fire is not being treated as suspicious.

Costa will reopen tomorrow at 10am.