Glen Cove businesses impacted by Isaias

After months of serving customers through a pandemic, many local businesses did not expect to have to deal with the consequences of Tropical Storm Isaias.

“It’s just PSEG did not communicate, which wasted time and money,” said Jeanine Dimenna, owner of the View Grill, “but most of all, the amount of food thrown out that could have fed so many people if they were just honest about appropriate timing.” Dimenna estimated that she had lost $15,000 to $20,000 worth of food and revenue.

“It’s very heartbreaking,” she said. “We worked so hard during the Covid shutdown, and it was a good feeling to be able to be in control and to at least be able to do something. But this was just a sucker punch. We didn’t see this coming. The lack of communication from PSEG was very disappointing.”

The View Grill reopened Monday night, and Dimenna said that customers quickly returned.

At the Stop & Shop shopping center in Glen Cove, businesses were without power for days. “We lost a lot of business, because it was for three days that we had to close,” said Manuel Lemues, a manager of Amalfi Pizzeria and Restaurant, which reopened last Friday. “People couldn’t communicate with us and we couldn’t communicate with them.”

He estimated that the restaurant had lost nearly $6,000 worth of ingredients, but added that the community has been very supportive. “As soon as we got the power, they were trying to order, but since we don’t have any product, we had to tell them ‘No, we can’t open until tomorrow,’” he said. “The community is very loyal. They keep purchasing from us, and they keep us busy.”

Punto Rojo Bakery, which is in the same strip of businesses, also went days without electricity because of the storm. “We had to throw out a lot of things, pretty much everything, because all the freezers and refrigerators were down,” said Ever Hincapa, the bakery’s manager. “We literally had to go shopping for everything again.”

Hincapa said he was frustrated with what he felt was a lack of communication from PSEG Long Island. “They kept changing the dates — different times,” he said. “It just took very long.”

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said on Monday that she was joining officials like State Sen. Jim Gaughran to call on PSEG to refund utility bills for those who lost power for more than 24 hours and reimburse the cost of perishable items that were lost. New York City’s Con Edison offered its customers reimbursements for perishable food, medication and other items that were lost during the outages.

“We are talking about that with Long Island Power Authority, and we will come out with a statement in the future,” said Daniel Eichhorn, the president and chief operating officer of PSEG Long Island.

Lemues and Hincapa said that they would appreciate any reimbursement. “Whatever we can recuperate from the loss, it would help a lot,” Lemues said. “That was a big loss.”

“It would be great if [PSEG] were able to do that — help us with the bill, at least,” Hincapa said.

Gaughran said that Long Islanders deserve to be reimbursed for their losses, and added that he would “continue to hold PSEG management’s feet to the fire.”

Lisa Cohn, president of the Glen Cove Chamber of Commerce, reminded residents to support local businesses that were affected by the outages. “They’re hurting,” she said.