Mookata eatery at Golden Mile Complex loses $6,000 worth of food due to 35-hour power outage

Over the weekend, tenants and residents of Golden Mile Complex went through a gruelling 35 hours after the compound experienced a power outage. 

As a result of the outage, the building's lights, air conditioning and refrigerators stopped working at around 11pm on Saturday night, reported Shin Min Daily News, 

While some businesses managed to get by without any form of electricity, others weren't so lucky. 

One such victim was a mookata (Thai-style barbecue) restaurant. Speaking to the Chinese daily, the 40-year-old manager of the eatery said that the outage cost the restaurant more than $6,000 worth of food. 

He shared that throughout the outage, half the restaurant's power supply was cut off and the kitchen was "pitch black". 

Despite that, the eatery continued to operate till 3am. However, they did not anticipate that the power outage issue would roll over to the next morning and with the electricity out for so long, the food in their refrigerators turned "sour and smelly".

"After I opened the refrigerator, I smelled a strong stench. Seafood such as crabs, shrimps, prawns and shellfish were all spoiled. Some meats were not fresh. All had to be thrown away," he shared. 

He added that in total, the restaurant had to discard over 30 packs of ingredients and to replace these, they had to fork out another $4,000. 

To make matters worse, the eatery's electronic payment systems were down as well and about 30 groups of customers who had no cash on hand did not want to dine in and left. 

Their customers also lamented about the lack of air-conditioning at the restaurant and he shared that overall, the business that day fell by 60 per cent. 

Another Thai restaurant owner, who did not want to be named, said that his business dropped by around 20 per cent as one out of two of the outlets he owned was affected by the power outage. 

"I've been doing business here for five years and this is the first time there was a power outage without warning. It's been more than a day and management still can't figure out why," he shared. 

This isn't the first time that Golden Mile Complex has had power issues. Back in 2014, a fire caused a major power outage and an extended blackout. Similar to this recent case, tenants went for hours without electricity, resulting in spoilt produce and a drop in customers. 

ALSO READ: I tried going without electricity for 24 hours — here's how I survived

melissateo@asiaone.com