Gaido’s, like most businesses in Galveston, is hoping for a swift return to normalcy after Hurricane Beryl knocked out power across much of the island during the region’s peak economic season. Five days after landfall, many stores, bars and restaurants had begun to open their doors again, waiting for customers who have been slow to trickle in in the aftermath of the Category 1 storm.
While other restaurants are eagerly open for business, Gaido’s has not yet been so lucky. The Galveston mainstay, as with about 28,000 other homes and businesses in the county, still did not have power as of Friday afternoon, according to the City of Galveston.
“All we can do is try to find the silver lining each day, work on some extra details and cleaning we don’t get to do on a daily basis and try to get hours to our team that need to put food on the table,” Gaido said. “But yeah, we’re eager, we’re ready to be open and as soon as we get power, we’re going to be rocking and rolling.”
The recovery has proceeded at different paces for various residents and business owners, even within the same neighborhood. In downtown Galveston, Conex Coffee Company served a steady stream of customers all week while employees at Yaga’s Cafe hustled to open the restaurant for dinner on Friday evening, after getting power back the night before.
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Like most Galveston residents, business owners agree that the occasional hurricane is the cost of living and doing business on the island. Losing a week’s worth of business in the middle of beach season, when tourist activity is the highest, however, still stings.
Mike Dean, the owner of Yaga’s Cafe on the Strand, estimates that he lost out on about $100,000 in business being closed since Monday. After nearly four decades in Galveston, though, he’s optimistic that Yaga’s and other businesses will come out the other side. The restaurant survived an 18-month closure in 2005 after Hurricane Rita knocked down an entire wall of the building.
“I believe in the people that are around me and the people that work for me. We’re going to figure it out,” Dean said. “If the tourists don’t come, we’ll just have to tighten our budgets and change our expectations, because storm season’s not over. We’ll be cautious, be careful, promote our events and knuckle our way through.”
Gina Spagnola, the CEO of the Galveston Regional Chamber of Commerce, admits that the prospect of another hurricane — after Beryl arrived so early in the season — “keeps (her) up at night.” She said, however, that it’s crucial for people to understand that Galveston is open for business. The Port of Galveston opened to cruise and cargo ships on Tuesday, and city services are back up and running.
Spagnola encouraged Houston-area residents to make use of Galveston’s public beaches as a way to escape the heat.
“Our businesses can’t continue another week or two (without customers),” Spagnola said. “We want those visitors to come down here and to shop here and eat here because that will be the biggest boost back in our ability to recover.”
It’s always hard on small businesses after an event like Beryl, but at least in Houston those businesses mostly depend on a local customer base. Galveston is much more dependent on visitors, and most people aren’t thinking about weekend getaways right now. If that’s in the realm of possibility for you, I’m sure they’d love to have you come down.
UPDATE: The Houston Landing has a story on the same topic this morning.