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C\u00farate, a Spanish tapas restaurant and one of the best-known eateries in Asheville, North Carolina, sat empty for two days after Hurricane Helene last September.<\/p>\n
Then co-owner Katie Button reopened it alongside World Central Kitchen to provide meals for many community members who were without electricity and running water. To do so, C\u00farate installed a tank and brought in clean water at the cost of $1,000 a day, racking up $30,000 in water, tank rental and delivery fees.<\/p>\n
In mid-October, C\u00farate \u2013 which won a 2022 James Beard Foundation hospitality award and was honored as a top wine restaurant from Wine Enthusiast in 2021 \u2013 reopened to paying customers. But in order to survive in the post-Helene restaurant market, the restaurant\u2019s owners had to make some changes. The biggest? Closing C\u00farate\u2019s sister restaurant, La Bodega, which served lunch.<\/p>\n
\u201cPost-storm, we needed to shrink the size of our team and shrink the size of our overhead and operating costs pretty quickly to rebuild,\u201d Button said. \u201cWe were worried about the impact of tourism and trying to operate two Spanish-themed restaurants downtown.\u201d She opened La Bodega into an event space, which is \u201ceasier to manage\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
Such recalibrations to survive are emblematic of Asheville\u2019s food scene one year out from Helene, when the city\u2019s existing restaurants have a renewed focus on planning for the future.<\/p>\n
However, not every restaurant survived. \u201cIn spring, it felt like a restaurant was closing once a week,\u201d said Mike McCarty, executive chef of the Lobster Trap. In fact, some of Asheville\u2019s most well-known restaurants closed, including Laughing Seed, one of the region\u2019s oldest vegetarian restaurants; Bouchon, a longtime French restaurant; and Bottle Riot, Vivian and Rhubarb, which were beloved to locals and tourists alike. There were also temporary closures of restaurants flooded by Helene, such as the Bull and Beggar.<\/p>\n
The executive director of Asheville Independent Restaurants (AIR), Meghan Rogers, noted that Asheville\u2019s restaurant closures are due to a \u201ccombination of things\u201d, not simply Helene. Several of the restaurants that shut their doors had owners who were already mulling closures, she said. An Asheville Watchdog report in June noted the closure of more than 40 businesses, including 15 restaurants, in the downtown area alone.<\/p>\n
The question restaurateurs are asking themselves now is \u201cif something is on the horizon, how can we better protect our investment?\u201d, said Rogers. For some, she continued, this meant purchasing restaurant-sized generators. But for other restaurants, it meant strategic downsizing of staff and trimming menus. \u201cOverall, [Helene] brought everything back to the basics,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
<\/span>The Laughing Seed Cafe in 2019.<\/span> Photograph: RidingMetaphor\/Alamy<\/p>\n When Helene knocked out Asheville\u2019s water supply, the local Mellow Mushroom pizzeria had electricity. Beginning the Monday after the storm, co-owner Gerry Mahon said his staff made 1,000 pizzas and gave them away for free for four hours each day. (\u201cThe health department said, \u2018You can\u2019t sell anything, but since you\u2019re giving it away, we really can\u2019t have any issue with that,\u2019\u201d Mahon said.) Mellow Mushroom offered free pizzas for two weeks and delivered them to rescue teams and residents in areas outside the city.<\/p>\n Mahon realized the blows to the Asheville tourism industry would affect his business. \u201cYou look up and realize you aren\u2019t going to have a customer base for more than a month,\u201d said Mahon. \u201cThat\u2019s more than $300,000 in sales that we lost,\u201d which he called \u201ca bit of an economic hit for us\u201d. Sales have still been down since the hurricane, he said.<\/p>\n To survive, Mellow Mushroom cut staff \u2013 and its menu. \u201cThat was our immediate response, to say, \u2018OK, let\u2019s make it where this machine runs more efficiently,\u2019\u201d Mahon said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to lose one in five customers, you naturally benefit by making a menu smaller.\u201d He said the restaurant trimmed 30% of its menu and has decreased the product it inventories by 40%. The smaller menu has received \u201cno complaints at all\u201d, according to Mahon. He surmised that because Mellow Mushroom\u2019s customer base is largely tourists, and they may not even be aware the menu has been pared back.<\/p>\n In addition to a slimmed-down offering of food, Mellow Mushroom also employs one-quarter fewer staff. \u201cFor as much as I hate to have to save on labor, it was the necessary thing to do,\u201d Mahon said. \u201cWe still had to pay our bills.\u201d<\/p>\n Other restaurants took a similar tack of downsizing staff. The Market Place, a high-end farm-to-table restaurant also located in downtown Asheville, closed for 70 days following the storm. Chef William Dissen took \u201ca really tempered approach\u201d in reopening after Helene, and cut service from dinner seven days a week and two weekend brunches to dinner only five days a week. \u201cIt felt very similar to reopening after Covid: we\u2019re open, [but] that doesn\u2019t mean the crowds are going to come back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Dissen also relied on advice from others who\u2019ve lived through a similar gut punch to the industry. \u201cI have some friends that live in the New Orleans area,\u201d he said. \u201c[I asked:] \u2018What did you do after Katrina?\u2019 They all said: \u2018Keep things small, operate your business as small as you can to still try to make a small margin, small profit, and focus on a small menu, small team and cook your heart out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Luella\u2019s Bar-B-Que made a similar choice to go leaner with staffing. \u201cWe had to trim down out of necessity and we\u2019ve stuck with that model,\u201d said owner Jeff Miller. And C\u00farate consolidated both its team and menu, too; it reopened to the public with a downsized menu, although it has returned to its full spate of offerings. Since the closure of its other restaurant La Bodega, Button said her team had since added some of their favorite sandwiches to C\u00farate\u2019s menu.<\/p>\n Button lost a third of her staff both to layoffs and people moving after the storm, she noted. \u201cThese kinds of consolidating decisions that a lot of restaurants are making are important because they\u2019re ensuring the restabilization so we can rebuild and continue with the vibrant food scene that Asheville has,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n For many restaurant owners, their Helene experience has been defined by their insurance coverage. Several realized they were not covered for experiencing a loss of business in general, but rather for specific weather-related harm.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of our businesses are taking a closer look at their insurance policies,\u201d noted Rogers from AIR.<\/p>\n McCarty from the Lobster Trap filed a loss-of-business claim with his insurer and was denied. He appealed and was denied again.<\/p>\n \u201cThe explanation I received was that my business interruption and lack of water service were considered the result of flooding, and therefore my claim was denied,\u201d he explained. \u201cI\u2019m not in a flood zone, being located in downtown, and had no reason to have flood insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n Mellow Mushroom\u2019s filed a claim for the $300,000 in sales it lost, Mahon said. However, the restaurant is also on higher ground in downtown Asheville and therefore didn\u2019t have flood coverage. \u201cIf that restaurant realistically floods, we better have a friend named Noah,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n Mellow Mushroom ended up diving deep into the intricacies of its policy. Mahon said he was told by his insurance company: \u201cIf you can prove to us that the loss of water service in downtown was not caused by a flood, but was caused by a landslide, we could then pay out.\u201d Doing so would have meant proving \u201cthe rain caused a landslide that came down and actually knocked out all of the water service from the hillside next to the reservoir,\u201d Mahon said. And he actually gave it a go: \u201cI said, \u2018Well, it\u2019s still caused by a flooding event, which is rain.\u2019\u201d Alas, the insurance company came back and said the argument didn\u2019t adhere to the \u201cverbiage \u2026 in the policy \u2026 Naturally, we were denied that [claim].\u201d<\/p>\n Luella\u2019s policy covered its restaurants from wind damage. That came in handy when a gust brought down five 80ft trees from a neighbor\u2019s properties on to the restaurant\u2019s property and downed power lines and transformers.<\/p>\n Many \u201cpeople didn\u2019t know their policies very well, and I was one of those people\u201d, Miller said. \u201cBut thankfully, once I really dove into the fine print, [I saw] we\u2019re covered.\u201d Asheville\u2019s widespread lack of electricity and water \u2013 which is part of the reason the restaurant was temporarily closed \u2013 wouldn\u2019t have been covered on its own. \u201cUtility disruption alone, typically, is not part of those commercial policies. But we had a wind claim,\u201d Miller explained.<\/p>\n Miller heard \u201chorror stories\u201d from other restaurant owners who had difficult times working with their insurers, or who have learned their insurance coverage didn\u2019t cover what they needed it to cover. That wasn\u2019t his experience. \u201cIt definitely took a lot of phone calls and meetings,\u201d Miller said. Fortunately, \u201cour insurance carrier stepped up to the plate\u201d.<\/p>\n Several restaurant owners who spoke with the Guardian underscored how they want to look to the future and pointed to new eateries that opened since Helene.<\/p>\n Rogers said she is aware of \u201calmost 20 that have newly opened or are planning to open\u201d. These include Crusco, started by the former team from Cucina 24, which closed this year after the sudden death of chef and owner Brian Canipelli; Kenny\u2019s Pizza, which was opened by the pizzaiolo at Cucina 24; ButterPunk, a bakery which opened in the River Arts District, an area badly damaged by flooding; and Fitz and the Wolfe, a downtown music venue serving smash burgers.<\/p>\n The Market Place\u2019s Dissen wants potential tourists to understand that Asheville\u2019s restaurant scene is open. He\u2019s toured the country over the past year promoting a cookbook, he said, and he\u2019s encountered people who have asked about Asheville: \u201c\u2018Can you even go there? Do you have power still?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cPeople think we\u2019ve been wiped off the map!\u201d<\/p>\n On the contrary, he tells them: \u201c\u2018It\u2019s wide open \u2026 Asheville is beautiful. Come visit us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s insurance got to do with it?<\/h2>\n
Coming back means starting up<\/h2>\n