Cafe loses thousands after street power cut

The owner of an independent cafe said he lost thousands of pounds in trade when a power cut forced him to close and subsequent repair works blocked their doorway.

Caffé Tucci on Surrey Street in Sheffield city centre was one of several shops and businesses left without electricity from 10:30 BST until about 21:00 on Thursday.

On Friday morning, the cafe owners arrived to find the pavement outside had been ripped up and a 20ft (6m) cordon was across their entrance. Northern Powergrid apologised for the inconvenience.

Owner of Caffé Tucci Salvatore Capasso said he had to send staff home and throw away almost 40kg of food because the cafe's fridges had stopped working.

He said takings were 50% down and he feared if the issue was not resolved by Monday he could lose thousands more.

"If we close one day I lose at least £1,500 and staff need to come here to work.

"I pay my staff even if I have to close."

He said on Friday, he paid his staff for four hours' work because he did not want to let them down.

"Every month we need to pay wages, rent and suppliers and we lost a lot of money because we have a lot of fridges.

"Stuff cannot stay overnight at that temperature," he said.

"We've got cheese, milk, fresh meat, meat we had prepared for service - we're talking about 25kg of meat and 15-20kg of cheese we've just thrown away sadly."

Capasso said it was a big loss for a small business, especially in the current climate of business rates and staffing costs.

"Costa, Starbucks, Caffè Nero – if something like this happened to them it would be just another day, they are multi-billionaire franchises," he added.

Maria Foss, who works in the café, said the disruption was putting off potential customers.

"I've seen so many people, passing, coming, looking around and just leaving," she said.

Paul Taylor, co-owner of Taylor Taylor barbershops and hairdressing salons, which is next door to Caffé Tucci, said they had also been impacted by the power cut on Thursday.

"Luckily, I came this morning and the electrics were on, but this hasn't been repaired like it should have been.

"I had to cut hair in the dark and we've got a big ladies' salon above and they had to shampoo the clients - so they hired a room in the Novotel."

Northern Powergrid said its teams were liaising with the contractors and it would update businesses when it knows more.

"We're aware of the current disruption outside of Caffé Tucci on Surrey Street, Sheffield.

"We apologise for the inconvenience and will work with our contactors to establish an estimate timescale for restoration," a spokesperson said.

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