Red Hook Restaurants Struggling With Debts From Sandy

Although many Sandy-affected bars and restaurants in Red Hook are open for business once again, the owners of these establishments are still struggling to get federal assistance and pay off debts related to the storm. Monica Byrne, one of the co-owners of Home/Made, estimates that the storm-affected businesses in the area each sustained about $30,000 to $125,000 in damage, and many of these establishments were not generating any revenue in the months following the storm. Byrne tells Crain's:

People think that things are open, and we're back to normal...But what people don't see is the huge amount of debt that everyone has had to take on, or whether they are able to make their payroll or able to make their rent—or whether they owe their electrician almost $10,000, like we do.

Red Hook Lobster Pound owner Susan Povich spent $400,000 on repairs to her shop, but her lunch business is slower than she anticipated because some of the neighborhood's manufacturing firms closed after the storm. Povich has shelved her expansion plans for the moment.

Fort Defiance restaurateur St. John Frizzell says that he gave up on trying to get a storm relief-loan from the Small Business Association after several rounds of maddening paperwork. Frizzell explains: "It's the constant sending you back to the well...You get there, you've got your documents, and you need to go back and get this one, or that one. And then it's three more. And then it's one more."

For more on how Sandy-affected restaurants dealt with the aftermath of the storm, check out Eater's video series The Sandy Chronicles.
· Red Hook Revival is Deceptive [Crain's]
· All Coverage of Hurricane Sandy [~ENY~]
[Photo: Signage in the Window of Home/Made after the storm, by Lockhart Steele]

Home/Made

293 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn, NY