Cape businesses assess losses from storm

March 06--HYANNIS -- Jason O'Toole hoped that Friday's nor'easter would only slow down business at Pizza Barbone, that once the storm passed he and his staff could get back up to full speed with relative ease.

Instead it brought the 390 Main St. restaurant to a screeching halt.

What began as a partial power outage Friday morning turned into a full-on loss of electricity by the evening. By Saturday afternoon, with the lights and, more important, the walk-in freezer still powerless, he knew it was time to start throwing out all their food.

"Luckily we've always had one of the walk-in freezers work and we could just pile everything in there. Or usually it is so cold out that we could put it in the van and basically turn it into a fridge out back," he said of how the restaurant fared during previous storms. "But it's so warm now that we were unable to save everything."

O'Toole estimated they threw out $7,000 worth of food and paid $4,000 or $5,000 in labor costs to do so. What he does not know is how much he will lose in revenue if the restaurant stays closed for much longer.

"On the bright side, we've been cleaning the heck out of the kitchen," he said.

As the Cape slowly regained power Monday after the weekend nor'easter, many businesses like O'Toole's were coming to terms with what had been lost and trying to figure out when they could reopen their doors.

Both Stop & Shop and Shaw's supermarkets, which together had 11 stores lose power for part of the weekend, were working to restock Monday after a weekend filled with empty coolers and freezers, company representatives said via email.

Stop & Shop spokesman Philip Tracey wrote that affected stores remained open by generators and refrigerated trucks that were used for perishable and meat products. Perishables that were set to spoil were taken to the company's green energy facility in Freetown; meats that were near their expiration date were frozen and donated to food banks.

Shaw's, too, used generators and refrigerated trucks to keep stores as functional as possible, spokeswoman Teresa Edington wrote in an email. None of the stores closed during the weekend.

Many businesses were also spending Monday reaching out to their insurance agents to figure out how much of their losses could be recouped. Adam Trivilino, a vice president at Rogers & Gray Insurance, said coverage is individually tailored depending on a business's needs and what the owner has decided to include in the policy, but in general at least some of the weekend's damage should be reimbursable.

"Unfortunately it's sometimes the case that people forget what their coverage is until they have a claim, which is all the more reason to have a full risk-assessment conversation up front, put the options on the table and advise them on what's available," he said.

For this weekend's storm, damage to restaurants and other food-based businesses would likely be covered either under a property insurance policy or another insurance called "spoilage coverage," which covers spoiled food stocks, he said.

"Anyone who has perishable stock is going to think about spoilage coverage," he said. "I personally work with a lot of restaurants, and they aren't going to carry as much as Stop & Shop, but they all have meat and cheese and seafood in their coolers."

For those businesses that, through good fortune, escaped the power outages, the weekend was a whirlwind of residents seeking food, a place to charge their electronic devices and a few hours respite from the chill of an unheated home.

Kyle Parker, owner of Guapo's Tortilla Shack in Orleans, said the weekend presented some "rapidly changing" business conditions, including the loss of phone and internet service that prevented it from running credit cards for customers.

"We were able to operate without any digital contact with the outside world," he said. "If they didn't have cash, we either told them to come back and we'd figure it out or record a credit card number and do the processing later."

Although Parker said he was not happy to have profited from his fellow restaurateurs' losses, he also wanted Guapo's to serve as a community resource during the storm and its aftermath.

"For us, the important part was to be available and figure out the money later," he said. "The community responds positively when we are there for them. Everyone was flexible and patient." -- Follow Sean F. Driscoll on Twitter: @seanfdriscoll.

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