The outage extended from Harvest Moon Café, down the rest of the block and around the corner. Other businesses affected besides the two restaurants were Dogwood Books and Antiques, Lynn’s Uniforms, Riverside Gourmet, Sugar Candy Emporium, Wiyanna’s Salon, and Chisholm and Thomason Ltd.
Patrick Banderhorn, general manager of Harvest Moon Café, said the restaurant would remain closed for the remainder of the day after Comcast drilled a cable into a Georgia Power transformer, but he planned to open on time today.
“They said Comcast was running a cable and it misfed and went into the transformer and shorted out,” said Banderhorn.
Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft said, “Apparently an electrical contractor working for a local business damaged the underground wire serving the area.”
While early reports expected repairs to take four to six hours, Kraft said power was restored at about 5:45 p.m. Thursday.
“I’ve called all the staff working tomorrow coming in two hours earlier,” Banderhorn said Thursday.
Mellow Mushroom owner Jeremy Duke said he planned to open the restaurant at 8 p.m. Thursday if the power was back on.
He said Comcast officials promised to reimburse him for any monetary loss because of the outage.
“It’s just human error,” Duke said. “Crap happens. It was a mistake, I’m not blaming nobody as long as it doesn’t happen again tomorrow.”
The doors of Dogwood Books and Antiques as well as Chisholm and Thomason Ltd. were locked and the insides of the stores dark.
A Lynn’s Uniform’s employee, and Karen Jones at Riverside Gourmet, both said their store planned to close earlier than normal.
Eric Jackson, owner of Sugar Candy Emporium, said that aside from the power outage being an inconvenience, they were still able to weigh out candy for their customers on battery-operated scales.
Wiyanna Blalock, owner of Wiyanna’s Salon, said they operated as usual and planned to close at 7 p.m.
“We’re still cutting and coloring, just not blow drying,” she said. “Our clients trust us enough to cut hair in the dark.”