Standing in the tattered remains of her flooded Wilton restaurant, Cactus Rose‘s owner Maria Pertesis is surprisingly composed. All around her, there are a dozen, noisy air blowers drying wet floors; tables and chairs have been pushed out of the way to the edges of the rooms and covered with tarps; and sopping wet ceiling panels have been torn down to reveal broken light fixtures, dangling metal frame and the mechanicals destroyed when the frozen sprinkler pipes burst in the restaurant’s ceilings, sending gallons and gallons of water cascading into the rooms below.
The destruction is eerily familiar, given that she stood in the exact same place and the exact same soaking-wet, setting just two years ago.
“It’s a nightmare,” Maria says, surveying the seena. “To go through this once was awful. But twice?” It would be understandable to see her start to cry, but she holds it together until later in the interview.
The floodwaters broke on Friday afternoon, Dec. 16, around 3:30 p.m., at the start of what promised to be a busy weekend.
“Little drip, little drip, and then all of a sudden it was like Niagara Falls in here,” Maria recalls. She even had the presence of mind to record the flooding as it happened. It sounds like a rainstorm, inside the restaurant.
“I was scared even to be in here,” she says, as she shows how her hands were shaking as she recorded the video on her phone. Photos taken by a customer show Maria standing near the kitchen as the water teems from above. [See our photos, at the end of the article.]
What Maria and her partner and mom, Katerina Pertesis, stand to lose a second time–financially, emotionally, professionally–is heartbreaking. They had several holiday parties booked in the space, even into January. They’ll lose the next few months of customer business as well as everything perishable that has to be thrown away. They’re seeing the impact this has on the team they had to rebuild once before, their family of employees, who survive on tips from diners, and who are now out of their jobs right at holiday time, too. And what it will take to rebuild, again, is significant, both in what it will cost financially, in man hours, and in peace of mind.
“We went through so much the first time. We lost employees, we finally got ourselves up and running, and it was a tough opening, in May, just before the slower summer months. The fact that it’s the same issue, in the same spot, really doesn’t make me feel comfortable or confident to reopen. We are going to, because we don’t have a choice. We’ll lose out,” Maria describes.
What’s worse, she points out, is that they haven’t fully recovered since the first flood in January 2015. “I’m still not reimbursed for the first flood.” she laments.
Financials and What to Do Now
Maria explains how insurance in the restaurant business works–and what their particular situation is this second time around. Cactus Rose is a tenant in the River Park shopping center at 5 River Rd., which is owned by Kimco Realty. As a result, some things are out of her control and the process is difficult…and complicated, she says.
“The landlord has their own insurance. As an owner, you have to insure your own contents. I have everything insured. People say, ‘Sue the landlord.’ But it doesn’t work that way. You go first through your own insurance and then they subrogate whatever it is from that point on.
“Now this is the second time this happened. The first time we were treated so poorly. I hope this time they can expedite it because they really set us back the last time. They hired the wrong people, very unprofessional, and treated us very poorly.
“Everyone is like, ‘why don’t you take the money and run?’ Well, it doesn’t work that way. If I got a big lump sum of cash, of course I would leave. I’d be stupid to say. But I have invested so much money in this place to begin with. My time and now we’ve built our client base. People know we’re here. You can’t just pack up and leave because you don’t have enough money to do that. It’s not the way people think.
“I like the spot, I like the community–this is home. To pack up and leave doesn’t even make financial sense.”
They’re already starting to take the baby steps of figuring out how to come back, again.
“We’re trying to learn from the first time but there are still a lot of unknowns, we still don’t know how long it will be–at least two months, but we’re not sure. It depends on how fast things dry out, what needs to stay, what needs to go. It’s step by step.”
But it still leaves a lot unanswered. When the first flood happened, Maria first thought they’d bounce back in a month, maybe two months tops. But their time out of business turned into four months, due to delays and unforeseen complications. It’s hard for her to guarantee anything–to customers, to employees, to anyone. And it upsets her greatly knowing the impact this will have on her staff.
“It takes time to build up a team. These people are looking at you and you don’t know how long, and you just can’t answer that question–it kills you. Right at the holidays, you know?”
And what about people who don’t know the restaurant well, or that Cactus Rose and the Pertesis family are locals and long-time community members. During our interview, one woman pulls her car right to the front door and says, “Are you open? When will you be open?”
“We had water damage, we’ll be closed, probably a couple months,” Maria tells her.
“Oh, you’re closed-closed, sorry!” the woman says, getting back in her car and pulling away. Who knows how many potential customers will look elsewhere without coming back?
How Could this Happen a Second Time?
Maria has questions about why the same thing would happen again. It’s clear she’s frustrated with how she perceives the property owners handled what happened after the first flood, and she’s worried about whether things will get taken care of this time around. She has questions: Were repairs done correctly after the first frozen pipe flooding? Were corners cut that led to this second crisis?
She’s got a lot to say on the subject:
“You would think they would have repaired it in the right way the first time, because it’s in their interest. So it just doesn’t make any sense to me. Someone who was up there from the fire department said it looked like it was almost just a patched up job.
“It’s frustrating, it’s devastating. The last time this happened, it seemed like nobody cared. The property manager at the time was awful. I called him when it happened, and he said, ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ I’m a landlord, I know what I would do if a tenant called me and said, ‘There’s water coming down.’ It’s difficult when you feel you’re dealing with a company that just doesn’t seem to care.
“Then anyone they hired was unprofessional. Any contractor I had come in here looked and [questioned what they were doing]. We had to fight just to get them to bring a crew here. They set us back last time so long. It’s a disaster.”
What’s more, Maria says the damage from the first flood uncovered other pre-existing, underlying structural problems. “I don’t know if it was a blessing in disguise because if they didn’t find the structural problems, the whole kitchen hood could have fallen and someone could have gotten killed here. That was fixed.”
Now this time, even 24 hours after the water dropped fell, as Maria stands in the restaurant’s kitchen and talks with GMW, more water suddenly cascades from above the remaining drop ceiling tiles about two feet away. She’s aware of the potential danger with electricity still running. Still, since this is her second time around, Maria says she’s more aware of what to expect, in some regards.
“I’m trying to be a lot more calm because the last time this happened I was under so much stress and pressure. It took a physical toll, grinding my teeth, on my skin. I’m not going to let that happen this time. I’m going to try and stay as calm as I can. It’s the only way I’m going to get stuff done. If I think about it too much I won’t be able to move forward because it’s just…” she trails off.
Nonetheless, the emotional whammy of having the same disaster play out a second time is hitting hard–especially for Maria’s mom and business partner, Katerina.
“My mom always had that fear that it would happen again and it did. You wonder what do you do. But we’re fighters, we’re going to come back,” she says, looking around and surveying the destruction in front of her.
Outpouring of Support
Ignoring the unfortunate pun, there has been an outpouring of support on social media and in person that Maria says is the only thing keeping her going. She’s overwhelmed that a handful of residents have started an online Go Fund Me fundraiser to help the employees who are now out of work.
“The people in this town are incredible. The amount of people who have stopped in, who have called, who have messaged, it’s incredible. Thank you! It’s nice to know that we have…,” she breaks, and starts to cry, unable to hold back her own tears.
“To know that we have support from the town, that people actually care enough about us, is overwhelming. It means the world to us and makes us want to come back even more. When people come in and they’re sad, that they care, they love us and we love them. Just thank you to everyone. Just thank you.”
Maria is resolute that they’ll persevere even through the very difficult moments.
“We’re going to come back. We love the town, we’re happy here. People tell us, ‘Why don’t you open up someplace else?’ This is our town, this is our spot, this is Cactus Rose. We want to be here, and we’re going to stay here and we are going to reopen–that’s for sure. It’s an incredible feeling to know that we have that impact on people.”
What more can people do to help? Maria asks if anyone has any good advice, or has been through something similar, and can give some guidance on the best things to do, to get in touch with her with anything that might help. And she hopes people will consider donating to help the employees, emphasizing the fund isn’t for the restaurant or its owners–all donations will go solely toward helping the kitchen and waitstaff.
Of course, she hopes people will come back again, when the restaurant reopens–which Maria insists will happen. “We got through it before, we’ll get through it again.”
To get in touch with Maria, send her an email. To make a donation to the employee assistance fund, visit the GoFundMe.com page set up on their behalf.