Ice storm in Texas: Small business in Austin hit hard by severe power outage

It’s a long way back for small businesses in Austin affected by the ongoing power outages. Some of them say they have lost tens of thousands of dollars.

For restaurants, the costs are indeed on the rise, from lost profits to spoiled food to employees who now don’t have a week’s pay.

“It’s fantastic to be with the staff and actually start dating some of the regulars,” said Chris Martinez, co-owner of Vamonos Texmex.

That’s good news at this farm-to-table Tex-Mex establishment on Airport Boulevard, which reopened on Tuesday. However, not good news?

“We have to catch up in a week, and that takes time,” Martinez said.

The restaurant was closed for a whole week, and there was no word on when they would bring power back, despite Martinez’s repeated calls to Austin Energy.

“Each time asking them if there is an estimated time of arrival. There is no estimated time of arrival,” Martinez said. “Every day he told the staff, ‘Hey, we’re closed for lunch, we can be open for dinner.’

Even after the lights were turned back on Saturday night, all their food had to be thrown away and replaced.

“We lost tens of thousands of dollars,” Martinez said.

Martinez says his biggest concern is the dedicated staff.

“It was very hard for them. Right now they are asking if they can find extra work because losing a job in a week is a lot,” Martinez said.

Meanwhile, at Cherrywood Coffeehouse at 38 ½ Street in East Austin, progress has been even slower. They received their power only at the end of Tuesday.

“Basically, right now we have to go through logistics to start our entire business from scratch,” said general manager Benjamin Harris.

After a week, they are left with empty freezers and about $30,000 worth of groceries in the trash.

“We actually had partial power for a while, but then when they started fixing it, they cut all of our power and we lost even more production,” Harris said.

Harris says what little they got from the city was completely wrong.

“According to Austin Energy, we had energy all the time because they were checking the system and they saw that we had energy, and in fact we didn’t have it all the time,” Harris said.

Some workers returned to Cherrywood late Tuesday evening, running for food and getting ready to reopen on Wednesday morning. Harris did his best to calm them down.

“We mainly worry about our employees and their lost hours because most of them live paycheck to paycheck,” Harris said.

While both companies say customer support has lifted their spirits, recovering from another crisis is not easy.

“Two years ago we had a big freeze and we basically lost everything because of it. And we’re still recovering from that. So I would say that this year it will be very difficult to be in the black,” said Harris.

“Every time we think we’ve overcome a hump, something else happens and so it’s a bit of a setback, but we’re not going to stop moving forward,” Martinez said.

Cherrywood Coffeehouse has created a GoFundMe page to help employees get back on their feet.

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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