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Business & Tech

Local Businesses Deal with Power Outages Days After Hurricane Irene

Businesses with power fed hundreds of residents without it. Businesses with outages lost food and revenue.

After Irene swept across the East Coast thousands were left without electricity. Some business owners in Rumson and Fair Haven are thankful for their power; others not so fortunate are starting to feel the pressure.

“We are glad to have had power through the whole storm,” said Steve Bidgood, owner of in Rumson. “We got to feed a lot of people who didn’t have power on Sunday and Monday night.”

Salt Creek Grill was one of the few businesses in Rumson that maintained power through Irene’s rage. Bidgood opened the doors to his restaurant Sunday night and served about 400 dinners to locals who had no power.

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“Most of my staff was able to make it in,” Bidgood said. “I had to pick up a few staff members in Red Bank since the public transportation system was down.”

With power outages still holding strong, Salt Creek Grill served another 400 dinners Monday night as well, mostly to people with no power looking for a bite to eat.  According to Bidgood, his restaurant dodged a bullet.

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Some local businesses are not as lucky. in Rumson still does not have full power. “We only have half our power,” said a Brennan’s employee. “We are running on only one of two power circuits.”

With only one circuit, Brennan’s cannot use their grill and all their coolers are off. Though they are open for business as of today, they are only serving cold sandwiches and snacks. According to a Brennan’s employee, much food was lost due to lack of refrigeration.

in Fair Haven is another business lucky enough to have power after the storm. Tavolo’s opened their doors Sunday at 10a.m. “We decided to open the restaurant on Sunday morning,” said owner Patty Balderas. “Good thing we did, because once people realized the weather wasn’t that bad, people came in to eat.”

On Monday night, Tavolo’s ran out of bead and pizza dough because of the influx of people coming in that had no power. “We were very busy all day on Monday,” Balderas said. “We had people coming in for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Back in Rumson, is open again for business today after being closed due the power outage. They opened their doors Monday morning to serve coffee and rolls, but could not serve anything hot because the grill was down.

According to a Butler employee, they always had a generator running that preserved their meats and other cold items, but the generator did not power the whole store. At 5p.m. last night Butler’s power was restored and now they are back in business.

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