Hurricane Beryl came through July 8 and left its mark on Houston. As of Friday, many who are still without power are playing a waiting game with CenterPoint, including restaurants.

Just as with May’s derecho, extended power outages mean restaurants are experiencing loss of inventory and revenue, and employees are being left without their usual paycheck in this time of need. Houstonia spoke with restaurant owners without power at their business to understand the full impacts.

Cochinita & Co.

Victoria Elizondo, chef-owner of Cochinita & Co. in the East End, says her restaurant has been without power since Sunday night, when the hurricane first hit. As a small business, not being able to open to customers has been detrimental financially—and Elizondo being a DACA recipient has played a role, too.

“I’m 100-percent owner,” she says. “I don’t have any investors, partners, or access to a lot of loans given my immigration status, so we basically as a business, live paycheck to paycheck with the sales of that week. We use that to not only pay employees, but for everything.”

Elizondo says with this extended power outage, some of the expenses also include purchasing an entire inventory of food again and doing equipment repairs. However, throughout the week, she noticed that Cochinita’s phone—which she took home with her—kept ringing with at least 60 calls. So, to try to stay afloat, she began selling gift cards that people can use when the business reopens. Within the first hour, the business had about $1,000 worth of sales in gift cards. Along with this, Cochinita also opened sales for its online market.

As of Friday, the business is still without power, but from 11am to 2pm on both July 12 and July 13, Elizondo is holding a small pop-up to offer market items, wine, and other refreshments.

Jūn

Once again, just like after the derecho, chefs Henry Lu and Evelyn Garcia’s restaurant is suffering from an extended power outage.

“There’s no words to describe how badly [the outage] is impacting us,” Lu says. “We’re a small business so we rely on constant cash flow. There are no big investors behind us—it’s just me and Evelyn, so nothing stops. We still have to pay rent and our property taxes. Most importantly, I need to pay my staff. We’re just trying to juggle it all and keep our people a priority.”

He says if Jūn doesn’t open on Friday, the total financial loss for revenue will be between $35,000 and $40,000. However, Lu says a lot of lessons were learned after the derecho. On the Sunday the storm hit, the restaurant closed earlier, and they grabbed and packed what they could into their walk-in freezer. He says they’re also on a waitlist for a generator, but with a shortage on gas and the expenses, there are a lot of pros and cons to weigh.

“[It’s] emotionally draining, but it’s completely out of my control,” Lu says. “There’s nothing I can do about Mother Nature. There’s nothing I can do about our energy grid. We’re trying to make the best of it—I’m still living my life. We’re keeping our staff up to date about everything that’s happening.”

“Our staff is happy to come in and help us clean. I’ve been going to the restaurant every day to make sure everything is good so that when we do open up, at least we have some stuff to open up with. If this is the beginning of hurricane season—and everyone’s telling us that it’s going to get worse—we just have to take better measures on everything,” Lu adds.

Mimo

Mike Sammons, co-owner of Mimo, says this past week without power was supposed to be a busy week for Mimo. Tuesday morning, he had to start calling diners and telling them that they didn’t think they’d be able to accommodate them.

“It’s super frustrating, especially as a new business—as a new restaurant—to be dealt with this kind of setback,” Sammons says. “Every point in a restaurant’s career is important, but especially when you’re new—every day, every week, counts. Everybody’s just on hold and waiting, and we just want to work and get back to it, but we can’t.”

Sammons says thankfully, the restaurant was mindful of the possibility of the power outage, so there were precautions taken to salvage the building and food items. This includes limiting food preparations going into the week and securing the patio down.

“Mimo is 100-percent self-funded; it’s [chef Fernando Rios] and I’s creation, it’s our baby—we wanted it to be the best that it can,” Sammons says. “When there’s been two incidents in short tandem with one another, it’s a roller coaster. Restaurants are important to the city—they really help define the fabric of our city. It’s super important to remember your local businesses and try to give them support.”

The Original Ninfa’s on Navigation 

Justin Solomon, director of operations for Original Ninfa’s, says the power outage might impact the loss of sales, but for him, the priority has become his team members. Although the Uptown location has been open for business, the Navigation restaurant had to remain closed throughout the week.

“In some cases, people rely on every single day of work to pay their bills,” Solomon says. “So, for me, the biggest thing that I’ve been making a hard push for is trying to find a generator to open the doors, even if it’s not at full capacity, just to get something going so that we can get our employees back to work.”

“This couldn’t have happened at a worst time. Here we are in July, and generally, in Houston, June, July, and August are slow months for restaurants, since that’s when people go on vacation. So, when you combine a slow month with four days of lost business, I’m projecting more than $150,000 worth of loss.”