click to enlarge - Courtesy
- Volunteers (left) and owner Rich McSheffrey of Cornerstone Pub & Kitchen in Barre (right) with his son Kaden McSheffrey
The last preflood photos Barre restaurant owner Rich McSheffrey has of the sprawling basement storage and mechanical area under his
Cornerstone Pub & Kitchen are time-stamped 5:40 p.m. on July 10.
That's when rushing floodwaters reached the basement electrical outlets and the security cameras went dead.
By that time, McSheffrey already knew things were not looking good. A video he shot from a friend's truck shortly after 5 p.m. on Monday shows murky, rapidly swirling water hitting the undercarriages of cars approaching the corner of Elm and North Main streets. The water lapped at the restaurant's front door.
"We're at the Cornerstone, and this is not good," McSheffrey narrates on the video before repeating "Oh, no" in a stunned voice more than half a dozen times.
McSheffrey was among several downtown Barre restaurant and bakery owners who shared with
Seven Days their firsthand accounts of watching this week's extreme flooding suddenly swallow their livelihoods. But as swiftly as the floodwaters arrived, so, too, did the much more positive deluge of community help.
In addition to Cornerstone and his Vermont Catering & Craft Beer, which also operates out of 47 North Main Street, McSheffrey owns
Two Loco Guys at 136 North Main Street. The Barre native admitted that he is not someone who asks for help easily, but his wife convinced him to post a social media request for cleanup assistance.
On Thursday morning, McSheffrey estimated that about 100 people, ages 12 to 75, showed up to help move destroyed equipment and ingredients out of the Cornerstone's basement. The
Wayside Restaurant dropped off sandwiches and a former employee brought pizza.
"The bucket brigade yesterday was one of the coolest things I've ever seen," he said.
Due to a small flood-related electrical fire, the building had no electricity and volunteers worked by strung-up construction lights. "For a place that had no power, it was pretty powerful," McSheffrey said.
click to enlarge - Courtesy
- Volunteers helping clean out the basement of Cornerstone Pub & Kitchen in Barre
Customers of the 11-year-old Barre restaurant were likely not even aware it had a basement. But the roughly 4,000-square-foot warren of rooms was the beating heart of the Cornerstone operation. It held extensive dry storage for ingredients and equipment plus large walk-in coolers. The keg system for the bar's 28 draft lines and the building's mechanical systems were also down there, in addition to an extra bathroom.
Floodwaters destroyed it all, including a brand-new 500-pound ice machine whose compressor was torn from its housing by the force of the water.
When McSheffrey was finally able to get to the restaurant on Tuesday, he found the dining room unscathed, thankfully, but both front and back basement stairs were submerged in five feet of standing water.
"It was quite shocking," he said. "Literally, the basement was like an ocean."
McSheffrey estimated that cleanup and replacement will total at least half a million dollars. That doesn't include months of lost business. He is also worried about his 25 to 35 employees, most full time, many of whom will be out of work while he rebuilds.
"I'm pretty thick-skinned," McSheffrey said, "but it is very, very overwhelming. I was really starting to have a panic attack."
Watching what the volunteer crew accomplished on Thursday morning, McSheffrey said, "My anxiety went from 50 to 5."
click to enlarge - Melissa Pasanen ©️ Seven Days
- Rise Up Bakery in Barre on Thursday
Across Main Street in the old granite yards, amid piles of river sludge that had been cleared from city streets, baskets of cheerful red geraniums still hung from the small, brick
Rise Up Bakery located at 48 Granite Street.
They belied the anxious mood of bakery co-owners Jim and Larissa Haas.
On Thursday afternoon, a thick layer of dried mud surrounded the front steps and a Servpro team carried industrial fans into the bakery, which took on about two feet of water during flooding.
"Not just water," Larissa said. "It was mud and silt and everything floating everywhere. The refrigerator was full of mud. The motor of the dough mixer was full of mud."
On Monday afternoon, when the couple realized their bakery was unlikely to escape flooding, Jim had driven over to unplug everything, his wife recounted. He parked on higher ground and walked through water up to his hips, she detailed, before forging his way back to his car. "The current was pretty strong," Larissa said.
Since Tuesday, when the couple returned to find everything floating in filthy water, they've been furiously cleaning the bakery and the woodshed, where the expensive kiln-dried firewood for the bread oven is stored.
click to enlarge - Melissa Pasanen ©️ Seven Days
- Cleaning out the woodshed at Rise Up Bakery
The couple thinks probably half a dozen volunteers have come by. "Every person shoveling helps," Larissa said. "The mud is very heavy."
Andy and Carolyn Shapiro of East Montpelier had driven over on Thursday. Both are involved with the Barre Historical Society, which owns the bakery building. Carolyn
spearheaded the project to raise funds to renovate the historic structure, which was completed in 2019.
Her husband noted that the renovation was done in accordance with flood-plain standards, with water-resistant materials and all the electrical and mechanical systems at least four feet off the ground, which will minimize needed repair work.
But for right now, Jim was worried about whether his mixer had been irreparably damaged. He'd been scouring Facebook Marketplace for a decent secondhand one. "If I can find one, it'll be at least $10,000 to $15,000.
Maybe," he emphasized.
click to enlarge - Melissa Pasanen ©️ Seven Days
- The sidewalk in front of Pearl Street Pizza and AR Market in Barre on Thursday
Back on the main drag, where thick, caked river silt rippled along the sidewalks and dust filled the air,
Pearl Street Pizza co-owner Stefano Coppola showed
Seven Days the almost empty, large basement storage area at 159 North Main Street.
The restaurant shares both that and the upstairs space with
AR Market, which operates a deli and store there. A small team including AR Market's manager, Lilah Watt, was finishing cleanup and documenting losses.
Everything in the basement was trashed, including three freezers and a huge walk-in, Coppola said. Floodwater poured through the back steps from the parking lot and even up through the grease traps in the basement sinks. Watt indicated the watermark on a wall at about three feet high.
Coppola and fellow co-owner Wilson Ballantyne were the last ones to leave the building on Monday at around 4 p.m., he recounted. "We were lifting everything, trying to put it on high shelves," he said, noting ruefully that it made no difference.
Right before they left, Coppola said, the pair stood at the side door to the pedestrian walkway next to the restaurant catching decorative barrels as they floated by. "One picnic table ended up three blocks away," he said.
Coppola estimated that Pearl Street Pizza has lost $50,000 to $60,000 in equipment and ingredients. He and his two business partners, Ballantyne and Chris Ruiz, have reluctantly furloughed 18 employees.
Luckily, Coppola's other North Main Street business,
Morse Block Deli & Taps, escaped damage. On Thursday, he said, "We had one of our busiest days ever."
The chef experienced Tropical Storm Irene when he was working at
Three Penny Taproom in Montpelier, he said. "With Irene and the pandemic, we're better suited to deal with this, " he said. "But nothing can really prepare you."
click to enlarge - Melissa Pasanen ©️ Seven Days
- Chef/co-owner Stefano Coppola of Pearl Street Pizza
As Coppola readied to bake 40 preordered Neapolitan pies that had been snapped up as soon as he posted about them on social media, he said he has developed a simple list of business disaster survival skills: "Pivot quickly. Don't let your revenue stream stop, and feed your community."
Even as he baked, Coppola was brainstorming his next pivot. With only 10 percent of his needed cold storage capacity, he could not run the business as usual. "I'm thinking pasta with meatballs, polenta and salads," he said.
Jesse Harper of Montpelier, a friend and customer, had stopped by to pick up pizza and wanted to talk to Coppola about what he could do to help. "What is the real need?" Harper asked.
By Friday morning, Harper's two businesses, a cannabis dispensary and security company, had donated $5,000 to help Pearl Street Pizza bridge the cash flow gap and pay its food order invoice and its managers.
"That's what small business does for each other," Harper said.