Local Restaurants Trying To Recover From Storm-Induced Power Outages

Many restaurants are scrambling to make up for the money they lost when they were closed during power outages from the Father’s Day weekend storms.

Cherry Street is starting to look normal again after five days of mostly closed doors.

Businesses around Green Country hope customers will be extra supportive to help end the month with some profit.

The Friday lunch rush looks different after the severe weather.

Some businesses on Cherry Street are still closed, while others are barely ready for customers.

Further south, near 41st and Hudson, Desi Wok Modern Indian Cuisine gets to take down the closed sign, and employees are doing a lot of food prepping and cooking to catch up on business.

Owner, Labrena Shamsi, said employees had to throw out food that went bad, deep clean and order new ingredients.

"Obviously, we had to pause DoorDash and Grubhub and our online ordering, so we turned everything back on today and posted on our social media channels that we're open,” said Shamsi.

Shamsi said when power went out, her business lost about $8,000 in food and 20 percent of her monthly income.

Even Desi, the business’ robot that normally walks alongside to help pick up dishes and tells a joke now and then, has been out of work the last five days.

Customers like Matthew Youngblood said it is important to support restaurant workers this week.

"A lot of those people, they live paycheck to paycheck, and it's difficult to make ends meet,” said Youngblood.

Desi Wok has been open 17 years. Shamsi said being closed the last five days has impacted her business even more than the 2007 ice storm did.

Still, Shamsi said she is grateful the restaurant is not closed for half a year like it was in 2017 when the kitchen caught fire and had to be rebuilt.

"It's horrible when something like this happens, but what can you do?” asked Shamsi. “I'm just grateful that the restaurant is still standing, and we have people.”

Most businesses along Cherry Street are now open, but a few may not be, so it is best to call the business before heading out.