When Hurricane Sandy took out the power in New York City's Union Square neighborhood, famed restaurateur Danny Meyer got creative to keep in touch with the restaurants in his empire.
According to The New York Times' Glenn Collins:
When the power failed at his apartment in the Flatiron district, his office at Union Square and his downtown restaurants, he said, he established himself in a makeshift office in the bathroom of the Madison Square Club gym on Fifth Avenue at 26th Street.
“For some reason they had power,” [Meyer] said, adding, “there was one outlet and I plugged in, and fortunately there was a chair to sit on rather than just the toilet.”
Meyer, whose company owns 16 restaurants in New York City as well as the Shake Shack burger chain, told the NYT that he was creating a disaster-plan task force to make infrastructure changes, buy generators, and improve communications systems so they could be better prepared when the next disaster strikes.
Drew Nieporent, another well-known restaurateur in New York City, estimated he lost some $600,000 in revenue at his three restaurants that were shuttered by Sandy, as well as $30,000 in spoiled food.
While some restaurants in parts of the city that kept electricity throughout the storm saw a boom in business, those located in the city's "dark zones" are still coping with the losses, both in terms of lost revenue and physical damage.
(h/t Eater's @kludt)
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