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It’s been a fairly chaotic start to the new year. On Monday, Jan. 6, when most people were planning a return to work and school after the holiday break, the weather had different plans. Richmond got its first accumulation of snow since January 2022, leading to closures across the region.
And while the morning began with a number of area restaurants and food businesses shutting down for the safety of their staff members and customers, the day ended with an even more serious concern for those operating in Richmond: a boil water advisory and/or no water at all.
Around 5 p.m. on Monday, the city of Richmond, in partnership with the Virginia Department of Health, issued the advisory for residents served by Richmond’s water system, whose pumps were affected by a power outage related to the severe weather. Residents were told to take conservation steps immediately and boil water before consuming it. While some customers saw a total loss of water service, others have experienced varying degrees of reduced water pressure.
Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover counties have removed themselves from the city’s water supply and transferred to backup supplies, and residents in those areas are not subject to the boil water advisory.
Without running water, Richmond restaurants and other food businesses are unable to operate and have been left with no choice but to close their doors. The team at North Side eatery Dot’s Back Inn had planned to remain open following the snow on Monday and was expecting a busy crowd of nearby residents, but the situation changed quickly. Not only did they miss the opportunity to capitalize on a snow day, now they’re stuck in limbo.
“I have like, PTSD adrenaline from [the COVID-19 pandemic-related closures of] 2020,” says McKenzie Bryant, general manager of Dot’s Back Inn, which has been in business for over 30 years. “You’ve got a neighborhood that’s out of work because of snow and out of water, so we could have been fostering to all of that, catering to all of that.
“It’s a massive hit, and you’ve got staff that can’t be paid,” she continues. “And then you’ve got the cost of food that you might have to toss out, food that was prepped. Stuff like that, things you don’t even think about, we are having to figure out. You’re just scrambling to figure out how to best utilize what you have now in order to ensure a smooth transition for when we do reopen.”
The consequences of the closures reverberate quickly. Produce, seafood and other restaurant food distributors have been receiving calls to skip deliveries and are navigating rescheduling. Bryant adds that it will take extensive preparations to reopen, including deeply sanitizing equipment such as the ice machine and managing the inventory of perishable goods.
“We have to sanitize everything now, everything that that water has gone through,” she says. “For restaurants, this is a freaking nightmare. We’ve got, you know, 30-35 families that are depending on us to keep our lights [on] and come into work. And then you’ve got a community that’s iced in, a neighborhood that doesn’t have fresh water, that depends on the restaurant to be open.”
She says that Dot’s plans on having staff come to work on Wednesday morning, regardless of whether the boil advisory is lifted, so that they can clean and sanitize the restaurant.
Idle Hands Bread Co. owner Jay Metzler shares that his Strawberry Street shop specializing in croissants, pastries and sourdough baked goods needs at least 24 hours of prep before it can be back in action. The advisory comes at a difficult time since the bakery was recently closed for a week due to renovations and the team had hoped to reopen on Monday.
“We had to throw away all that stuff today,” Metzler says of the baked goods. “And as a baker, a sourdough baker, especially, we need a full day of prep to get the bread out; we need, like, three days’ prep to get the croissants out. This hurts financially. It sucks for the employees. … I’m going to try to pay them as much as I can for these days, but there’s not a lot of standby money. Every day is important.”
Other establishments, such as Gold Lion Community Cafe in Manchester, decided to improvise. On social media they stated that they would be opening today with contingencies, not selling coffee, smoothies, lattes or anything that needs water; not offering delivery; and serving all food on compostable paper plates. They noted that they have a “small clean water supply to wash our hands and sanitize our surfaces. If we run out, we will close for the day.”
Early Tuesday, Mayor Danny Avula reported “with hesitancy” that the city expected water pressure to be restored by Tuesday afternoon, but that it will still not be safe to drink without boiling until the following day.
Although Bryant says Dot’s Back Inn has navigated circumstances like this before and they plan to handle this situation with the same care and caution as they did with the last public health crisis, there is no denying that time is money.
“I mean, it really does trickle down. This is not going to be just a 48-hour thing,” she says. “For a lot of small-business operations, there is never enough time in the day. What is the city going to do for for Richmond businesses that are taking a hit on this?”
Check rva.gov for updates, including local sites for bottled water distribution.
