Restaurant workers face hard decisions after Hurricane Helene: stay or leave? | North Carolina

Josiah McGaughey’s fine dining restaurant, Vivian, is still standing. Many of its neighbors in the River Arts district in Asheville, North Carolina, were leveled by Hurricane Helene’s flooding in late September.

“We were graciously spared the worst of the damage,” said McGaughey, who opened the business with his wife, Shannon, in 2017. Then, it was a pop-up serving elevated cuisine on paper plates at a local brewery. During the recent storm, Vivian’s building sustained some roof damage. “We lost water and power, as did everyone else. But we also lost tens of thousands of dollars worth of product.”

The business is also losing workers. “Quite a few important and key characters in our staff had to leave the state. And we haven’t been able to give those that stuck around any kind of date in terms of reopening,” said McGaughey, who was nominated for a James Beard Foundation south-east regional chef award last year.

More than a month after the hurricane pummeled the mountains of western North Carolina nearly 80% of Asheville homes and businesses do not have drinking water, according to Asheville Water Resources. No water means that restaurants, reliable engines of the Buncombe county’s $3bn tourism economy, can’t fully operate in their busiest money-making season when visitors typically seek out fall color and cool mountain temperatures. In turn, that means a large swath of the area’s residents are without work; more than 22,000 people work in food preparation jobs.

Of Vivian’s employees, nearly half have left. Among them are a pastry chef who moved back to Boston, a dishwasher who returned to Virginia, and a sous chef who lost his home in the floods and relocated to the eastern part of the state. McGaughey noted: “People are making those decisions on a weekly basis.”

Though Vivian escaped destruction, it’s closed indefinitely. In this case, luck is a relative thing.

“The fact that our building is still standing has made it more complicated in terms of getting funding. No insurance company is being helpful to anyone in Asheville that I have heard of, and ours is being particularly nasty. Since we can’t prove that the damage to the roof came from the storm, they won’t cover that. They won’t cover our losses. They’ve completely denied us any of our claims.”

Without money for repairs and water, McGaughey is unsure of the future for his restaurant and staff.

Kim Murray, co-owner of Creekside Taphouse, is in a similar situation as an independent restaurateur. “We didn’t get any assistance, and we lost an entire month of revenue” at the quaint neighborhood barbecue and beer joint. “Our insurance claim was immediately denied, and we’re in the process of trying to appeal that. We applied for a [Small Business Administration] disaster loan, and they told us there was no more money and there won’t be any more funding until after the election.”

Creekside reopened on 24 October, but not with a full staff. Murray said, “I’m trying to bring back staff in order of their need, but it’s a double-edged sword because I have no idea how much money they are going to be able to make.”

Bartender Capuchina Taylor has experienced the cut of that blade first hand. She works at North Carolina’s oldest known gay bar, O.Henry’s, which opened in 1976. Halloween is usually one of their busiest days of the year. But this year, she said, “I probably made $80 on what would normally be over a $200 day. I can’t make rent on $80 a shift.” Her hourly wage is a mere $6 an hour, less than the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Despite the drop in income, Taylor doesn’t want to leave her post. “I really love my job,” she said.

Most of her money comes from tips, and she explained “most of our regular customers also work in hospitality. We have hotel workers, hair-dressers, bartenders and restaurant people. None of those professions can go back to work yet [full time]. So customers have been tipping what they can, which is often less than normal.”

Now that she’s back at work, she can’t get unemployment. But unable to access Fema relief or other aid, she’s depending on her credit card for day-to-day expenses, “and that’s not something I would ever do”, she added.

“I’m in an industry that was entirely stopped because of [hurricane impact],” said Alex Nolan. After assisting in an Asheville location of beloved staple Mission Pizza, Helene forced Nolan to return to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “Similar to how it was during Covid, the entire rug was pulled up from under me, and I’m up shit’s creek through no fault of my own.”

Nolan had built a life in Asheville, cooking for the celebrated restaurant Rhubarb for seven years before going to work for old friends at Mission Pizza. Back in central North Carolina, he’s sheltering at his mother’s home and working at the original Mission Pizza location. “It feels like I had to take a 10-year step backwards to come back to Winston-Salem and figure out my whole life again,” he said. He doesn’t plan to return to Asheville any time soon.

Hayley Lusk, who manages the east Asheville location of BattleCat Coffee, is “staying because my roots are here. But this is one of those major events that allows people to re-evaluate what they are doing with their life – similar to Covid.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of my regulars who work in the service industry. Their jobs are still shut down, or they might not even have a building to go back to for work. So the decision is made for them, and they can’t stay in the service industry. Or they’ve decided that’s the final push that they needed to get out of the business.”

Most of BattleCat’s four employees were able to return, says Lusk, but one intends to move away in the new year. The coffee shop was able to truck in potable water to reopen and has seen a steady flow of locals from the surrounding neighborhoods.

That clientele may be the difference between surviving and shuttering. Fema estimates that 43% of businesses affected by a disaster never reopen, with 29% closing within two years.

“It really boils down to the fact that I am not dependent on tourism for our business,” Lusk said. “Not every place is so lucky to be able to say that.”