Friday night’s storm left many in San Antonio rushing to clear fallen trees, flood debris and waterlogged belongings. For some area restaurants, widespread power outages also meant tossing valuable food kept at unsafe temperatures for hours or days.
In a Monday Facebook post, Five Points staple M.K. Davis told customers it was scrambling to recover by Tuesday morning.
“Once power is restored, we have a lot of work ahead of us,” the post read. “We’ll be clearing everything out, starting fresh, getting our coolers back down to temperature, and bringing in new deliveries so we can hopefully be ready to welcome everyone back Tuesday at 11 AM.”
Nearby ramen shop Kimura also lost power but was able to limit its losses.
“The power was out until the afternoon yesterday, luckily we were able to transport some of our product to one of our other restaurants, but there is still alot to do around here, we will be receiving new product, prepping all day, so no lunch service today,” Kimura said in a Monday morning post to Instagram. “Hoping everyone can come out, our Miso ramen will still be $7 today!! Our menu will be slightly limited as many of our items take many hours to make. We will do our best to offer a well rounded menu for tonight and hope everyone can come out and get ramen, apps and drinks!! Hope everyone has their power back, if not come hang with us and charge your phones!!”
In Alamo Heights, quick reactions by both the restaurant and the power company saved the day. Cappy’s General manager Kyle Thomas said they weathered the worst of the outage by icing perishables and summoning a refrigerated truck for backup.
“By the time we got the first load on the truck, the power came back on,” Thomas said. “We lost a brunch service, but it was only a little more inconvenient than usual.”
Some popular restaurants took significant damage and will remain closed until further notice.
The Cove, about a half-mile from Kimura, took significant losses to its fencing and signage, while its dining room flooded and pavement buckled.
“Needless to say, The Cove will be CLOSED until further notice while we clean up, assess the damage, and put everything back together again,” the restaurant said in a Saturday morning Facebook post. “We’ll keep y’all updated here as soon as we know when we can safely reopen.”
According to foodsafety.gov, refrigerated food remains safe for up to 4 hours following a power outage if the refrigerator door remains closed. A full freezer can hold for 48 hours, while a half-full freezer is safe for half that time. For area residents who lost their food to the storm, the San Antonio Food Bank can provide emergency food relief with details at safoodbank.org/disasterrelief.
Dining and Cooking