In hopes of escaping the internal heat, the Hussain family closed before moving to the Mirchi Cafe and Masala Pizza in Dublin.
“We’re going to San Francisco, so we stopped to get something to eat,” Ray Hussein says. He and his family live in Stockton.
Mirchi’s chef and owner, Lisa Ahmed, knows that fans of the courtyard area will help during this heatwave as outdoor dining is the only option during the epidemic. But now he fears another problem: blackouts.
Ahmed explains, “If you tier you earn $ 600 per hour. If you don’t, you can lose about $ 800 in those two hours.” “That’s a lot. Trust me. It all adds up to value. We need every penny to pay our employees, to keep the lights on (and) to open doors.”
The popularity of the restaurant is helping with ordering online. But Ahmed says that blackouts are not just affecting sales. There are also costs associated with buying and preparing food.
“Add labor costs to this product. It comes through an entire process in the restaurant and it costs money. Therefore, all of this results in more losses,” she says.
The California Autonomous System Operator, or CAISO, operates the California energy market. He issued a statewide flex alert to save people energy.
CAISO says it reached Emergency Phase 2 on Saturday. Phase 3 will lead to a blackout, in which case PG&E will initiate a blackout. It can last up to four hours.
“We only get 10 minutes notice before the completion of this process,” says Katie Allen, a spokesperson for PG&E, “So, unfortunately, we can’t properly inform customers when or if their power is cut off. will be given.”
Ellen explains that if consumers can conserve energy, this can prevent power outages or reduce the amount of time that electricity is cut.
In Contra Costa County, Sal Helmand has operated 360 gourmet bertitos in Walnut Creek for 26 years.
Helmand says businesses are down about 35% due to COVID-19. He says, if due to power cuts, he was forced to close his restaurant even for a few hours, which means more income and wasted food.
He says, “It has a huge impact on us because if we don’t have any notice, everything we prepare in the fridge and use that day is lost.”
Since there is no warning about when the force can be cut or who will be affected, Helmand is forced to reduce its size.
Helmand says, “So, as soon as the requests come, we’ll just do enough about those orders and then be on standby and see what kind of impact it will have on us, and go from there.”
PG&E recently released a page to show the turnover which is likely to be ordered by CAISO to shut down the power. To find block numbers from time to time, use the site search tool here.
