SALT LAKE CITY — Normally, Friday afternoons are busy at a popular Salt Lake City restaurant, with people hustling in and out to get their lunch, but that's no longer the case at the Star of India where the staff deals with unfortunate setbacks.
"It's crazy, it's not fun. It hasn't been a fun experience, its like all of a sudden, boom! unexpected. Very, very unexpected," said Paramjit Kaur, the restaurant's owner and manager.
When Jeff Johnson pulled up to the Star of India, he found locked doors.
"I'm actually hungry right now," he said, "so it would have been nice if I could have gone in and had their chicken curry, that's my favorite thing on their menu."
Restaurant staff learned almost as quickly as Johnson that things were not going well.
"I got here on Monday morning, everything was fine, and all of a sudden, I get into the building, there's no power," explained Kaur.
That was August 26.
"A week later," Kaur added, "we found out the whole grounding wire is out of the building. The whole main power line is out."
The restaurant had to throw food away, an almost $20,000 expense. Since then, the family business has been closed because due to having no power.
"[I] miss talking to my regulars that come to you every Friday, every Saturday, every day life," said Kaur. "People sit here and eat and you miss cooking, and all of a sudden, now we are packing, It doesn't feel right."
Kaur said plans were already in motion to move to a new spot down the street because their current building is part of the site where a baseball stadium is expected to be built. The restaurant damages would cost over $100,000 dollars to fix, and since the building was going to be demolished anyway, the owners didn't want to pay for the work and they cant afford to do it themselves.
"Your business stops, your life stops, because you don't have your daily income day by day," Kaur said.
Star of India is now looking for a temporary location.
"The plan is get into any kind of kitchen so we can run, at least, a takeout," said Kaur, "that would be great. At least some little basic income is coming."
