"Absolutely Crushing" - Downtown Businesses Left Reeling From Power Outage

In the weeks leading up to the 50th Christmas Stroll, the team at Lemon Press had been preparing for its biggest weekend of the year. The Main Street restaurant had invested thousands of dollars in food, brought in extra staff, and got the establishment decorated for the event. But the power outage that struck the downtown area late Saturday morning forced it to close, wiped out its plans, and took a huge financial toll on the restaurant and its staff.

"The financial impact on Lemon Press alone was astounding, but when you multiply that across the many other businesses that had to close, it becomes clear how devastating this was for the entire community," Lemon Press owners Darya and Michael Gault and Rachel Afshari told the Current. "The loss was not just ours; our staff missed out on crucial end-of-season earnings, and the ripple effects extend far beyond. This weekend is a significant revenue driver for the town as a whole. The taxes and income the community was expecting to collect are now lost, which will undoubtedly have a broader economic impact."

Lemon Press' owners had intended to keep the restaurant open through December 14, but the power outage prompted them to scrap that plan and make the difficult decision to close for the season.

"This setback made it impossible to continue," they said. "We’re doing what we can to make the best of it, donating food that survived to the local pantry and supporting our team where possible. The scale of this loss is a reminder of how critical it is to have infrastructure that can sustain our island’s needs, especially during peak times. Hopefully, this event will spur action to prevent something like this from happening again."

Across the downtown core district, business and restaurant owners were making similar calculations and hard decisions as they navigated the blackout.

At NanTaco on South Water Street, the staff kept serving bags of chips and guacamole until they ran out, then closed down the restaurant. On Sunday morning, owner Lee Milazzo discovered that all of the food in its walk-in refrigerator was a loss. He decided to close NanTaco for the rest of the season.

"The power outage was a crushing blow to all the restaurants that were affected," Milazzo told the Current. "The months between Labor Day and Stroll can be difficult, but most of us stay open for the local community and weekend visitors. Stroll weekend is a big factor in our business, and we plan for it by prepping food and paying staff to be ready for the rush of happy Strollers looking for lunch and dinner. We had a catering job this morning at 8:00 a.m. Thankfully, Patrick (Ridge) at Island Kitchen helped us out by letting us use his kitchen so we could save the catering job. We have received a number of emails, texts, and DMs from customers and other businesses expressing their support and concern for the restaurants that were affected. It's really nice to have a community of business owners who we call friends who support one another in times of need. If there's a silver lining to all of this, the Christmas Spirit is strong with the Nantucket community."

On India Street, The Proprietors started moving and canceling lunch reservations around 11 a.m. on Saturday as the outage began. When it became clear that the power wasn't coming back on that day, the restaurant team was able to save some of its food by moving it to the large walk-in fridge at its sister restaurant, Black Eyed Susan's, a short distance away. But the financial impact of losing Saturday and Sunday on the biggest weekend of the year was simply massive, said co-owners Orla LaScola and Anna Worgess. 

"The impact of this power outage will be long-term," LaScola and Worgess said on Sunday. "We are still currently trying to navigate how much of a knock on we will shoulder as a small business. The Proprietors traditionally remains open through the fall and early winter to service Nantucket, and Stroll is a much-needed boost to take us into the next season. We operate under a seasonal license and stay open as much of April through December as we can retain staffing for, so this loss of income for the floor team is brutal. Not unlike most open restaurants for Stroll, we bring team members back to work this weekend. These team members shouldered traveling costs and lodging and will not see the benefit of working."

Just around the block on Federal Street, the classic door of Ventuno restaurant was pinned with a simple, hand-written note from the staff: "No power. Closed for dinner."

Co-owner Andrea Solimeo said two of his establishments - Ventuno and Pizzeria Gemelle on East Chestnut Street - were forced to close due to the outage, while another, Via Mare at the Greydon House, remained open and had power.

"Saturday of stroll is the most important and best day of the year for our restaurant community," Solimeo said. "We spend the whole shoulder season working towards this one weekend. We prep for weeks; we decorate as a team, we get our favorite staff friends and family to come out here and spread the stroll cheer. It is our chance as a restaurant to make this special, to say thank you to our loyal customers, to thank our employees, and to show up for the town of Nantucket. Not being able to participate and do what we do was absolutely crushing. We invest so much into making this weekend happen, it will be very difficult to overcome this loss."

While retail shops that lost power were not forced to close like the restaurants, they too faced significant challenges due to the outage and financial losses that are still being calculated.

"The power outage significantly affected sales yesterday," said Jack and Meg Pearson, owners of Jewel In The Sea at 6 Straight Wharf. "Lost lots of foot traffic. We had candles and the door open and some people were open to shopping for jewelry via flashlights, but once it got dark outside, we closed. It was just too dark to safely have people navigating the store. Today (Sunday) was more of the same until power was restored. Very challenging and disappointing 50th anniversary of Stroll."