From interrupted beer production, to melted ice cream and having to send staff home, businesses across Toronto were struggling to cope with Mother Nature’s outburst Tuesday.
With 125 millimetres of rain wreaking havoc with the City’s electrical grid and flooding roads and basements, it wasn’t an easy day for businesses.
At Etobicoke’s Great Lakes Brewing, marketing manager Troy Burtch said three sets of brews were in the midst of production when power cut out around noon.
“We thought we might have to pour one down the drain, but it’s all OK now,” said Burtch. Each of those brews was 50 hectolitres, or 5,000 litres.
Still, the storm wasn’t all bad — the brewery’s tap room was filled with eager drinkers from area businesses whose power had also conked out.
“We were slammed. People had to leave work, so they came in here to have a pint instead,” said Burtch. “We were able to set up a credit card terminal by using a hot spot on someone’s phone.”
In hard-hit Liberty Village, the Left Field brew pub wasn’t quite so lucky, said owner Mandie Murphy around 3 p.m.
“We haven’t had any power for a couple of hours, so we had to close the taproom and kitchen for the rest of the day,” said Murphy.
By 4 p.m., Left Field’s power had returned, so they opened up their bottle shop, but it was too late to get staff back in to open up the tap room and restaurant, Murphy said.
The Liberty Village Business Improvement Area said on X that there had been flooding at “multiple locations” in the area.
Restaurants Canada CEO Kelly Higginson said she’d been getting calls from restaurant owners airing their frustration and despair.
With the LCBO strike making it harder to find booze, and many bar and restaurants still struggling to recover from the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, they were already deeply stressed, Higginson said.
“I’ve spoken to some places whose basements were flooded, whose staff couldn’t make it in,” said Higginson. “They’re like ‘what else is going to happen?’ They’re just so frustrated. This was going to be a busy week for them, because hotels are full.”
Even when power came back, some restaurant and bar owners now face days of repair and cleanup, plus dealing with slammed insurance adjusters, Higginson said.
“These next 36 to 48 hours are going to be pretty telling,” said Higginson.
Restaurants and bars had been hoping for a strong week of out of town visitors thanks to the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy, which takes place this weekend. While the main race happens Sunday, support races and practice laps start Friday, and officials from many racing teams are already in town.
The storm interrupted some of the track setup but won’t affect the event, said a spokesperson for the race.
“The weather did delay some of our day setup,” the spokesperson said in a text message. “We have contingency time built into our setup and dismantle, to account for these unplanned occurrences.” According to the spokesperson, roughly 44 per cent of race attendees come from further than 40 kilometres away.
Convenience stores and ice cream shops whose power was knocked out were fretting about the potential for everything from melted ice cream to having to close up during a peak summer period, said Ryan Mallough, Ontario vice president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
“If you’re a business that counts on freezers or fridges, you’re pretty worried today,” said Mallough.
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