A Really Bad Weekend

I'm sure anyone living in the Northeast right now knows how hard the area (including Central NJ) was hit by a major storm this weekend. Torrential rains and wind up to 70 mph outright assaulted the area all day and night Saturday, and into Sunday. Roads were flooded and thousands of homes and business lost power. In fact, it's now Tuesday morning, and several of my neighbors still have not had their power restored.

When the brunt of the storm hit, I was working at the restaurant. As I mentioned, it was Saturday, which is by far our busiest day of the week. Even with the the stoves on and the hoods running, you could still hear the whoosh of the wind and rain, and the blowing city debris clanking around outside. Then, without warning, about one hour before dinner service, we lost half of our power. The hoods and half of the lights went out. But we still had some light, the Lowboys and a few outlets still worked, and the gas still flowed.

Although without the hoods it became ridiculously hot in the kitchen, and the idea of breathing in all those accumulating kitchen fumes was a little scary, we still had hope. Hope that lasted about five minutes, when the chef announced that the walk-in was down. He then told us to turn the gas off, as it is not safe to run the gas without the hoods. And then, the power cut out completely. What a disaster!

See, our restaurant is one of those nice places with a small menu that frequently changes. All of the ingredients are fresh. We make everything in house, including mayonnaise sauces, salad dressings, vinaigrettes- everything. I even pickle my own mushrooms. Our menu includes a variety of proteins including bison tenderloin, poussin, foie gras, flat iron steaks and a large variety of seafood. Pretty much everything in our place has to be refrigerated. We were helpless. After cleaning our stations by candle light, we packed the walk-in with ice (a last ditch effort to keep it cool for the night). What else could we do? So we sat at the bar and drank room temperature beer in the dark, as the chef and GM reflected on the losses for the day.

It turns out that a car struck a power transformer in town, and this led to massive power outages and an underground fire. The police even had the street closed in front of our place. By calling around we found out that at least four other restaurants were in the same pickle. The hotel we're attached to had partial power, and generously allowed us to store some perishables in their walk-in.

Now, we're closed Sundays and Mondays, so I have no idea what I'm walking into today. Tuesdays are not usually overwhelmingly busy, but I just know that today we're all going to be building the place from the ground up. In fact, I'm not even certain the power is back on. Fingers crossed!