Sheffield city centre café loses thousands after power cut
The cafe owner said he has thousand pounds of pounds worth of food
A Sheffield café owner says his business has lost thousands of pounds after a power cut left food spoiled and equipment damaged.
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Salvatore Capasso, one of the owners of Caffè Tucci on Surrey Street, said the power cut affected businesses across the street yesterday.
Salvatore said traders were initially told the problem would be an “easy fix” and would be resolved by 10pm that night.
However, workmen were still on site this morning, leaving the café unable to trade normally.
The owners said they arrived expecting to open up this morning, but found the area outside dug up.
They said there had been “no communication” about what was happening or when the work would be completed.
Salvatore said he contacted both Sheffield Council and Northern Powergrid but claimed neither could tell him who was responsible for resolving the problem.
“While they fight each other, I am a small business losing a lot,” he said.
The café owner said the outage had resulted in between £2,000 and £3,000 worth of food being wasted, including cheese, milk and fresh meat.
He said the café’s freezer could only keep food safely for around three hours without power, but the outage had lasted for more than 10 hours.
“We have literally binned all the food,” he said.
“We can’t sell this stuff - food safety means we have to bin everything.”
Salvatore said the power cut had also affected equipment at the café, including its grill, meat slicer and air conditioning.
The business relies on the slicer to prepare fresh meat each day, while the hot weather has made working without properly functioning air conditioning particularly difficult.
He said repairs to the equipment would create further costs for the business, which also has staff, rent and supplier bills to pay.
The café was also forced to order replacement stock on Friday morning (July 31), adding to its expenses.
Salvatore said the disruption was particularly damaging because Friday and Saturday are normally among the café’s busiest trading days.
“We are not a multi-billion-dollar franchise,” he said.
“We need help.”
Caffè Tucci has stressed that it remains open as usual, despite works taking place outside the premises.
Northern Powergrid said: “We’re aware of the current disruption outside of Caffe Tucci on Surrey Street, Sheffield.
“We apologise for the inconvenience and will work with our contactors to establish an estimate timescale for restoration.”
Sheffield Council said they are aware that a number of businesses on Surrey Street have been affected by a recent power outage.
They confirmed the power outage was a matter for Northern Powergrid, rather than the Council's Surrey Street improvement scheme.
A Sheffield City Council spokesperson said they have been in contact with Café Tucci through Business Sheffield, which has provided support and advice, including information about compensation and business interruption insurance.