Restaurants, businesses coping with water woes

A boil water advisory in Cape Girardeau is not only affecting individuals but businesses and restaurants as well.

Aaron Geis, manager of Culver's, said the issue is forcing significant changes at the restaurant.

"We are not able to use any of our soda fountains or any of our ice or tea urns or hot coffee," he noted. "We can't serve drinks in our traditional way. So instead, we are buying cans of soda and offering a limited selection of drinks via cans of soda. Our beverage supplier, Pepsi Mid-America, is going to be bringing us a large shipment of some cans over the next couple of days or at least until the boil water advisory is lifted."

Geis said cooks are using bottled water to cook food items.

Safety is a big concern, he added.

"As far as washing our hands, I checked with the local health department, and as long as we have hand sanitizer available for both our guests and team members, after we wash our hands then use hand sanitizer, we should be good from that standpoint," he said. "From a dishwashing standpoint, our dishwasher has sanitizer and a water heater booster attached, so we are able to sanitize and clean all of our dishes. ... Bathrooms are open to the public, we have notices on all of our bathrooms on the mirrors just reminding people of the boil water advisory and advise them to apply hand sanitizer after they wash their hands after using the restroom."

Restaurants that heavily rely on water are using bottled water.

"We're open, and we are using bottled water," reported Suzanne Hightower, owner of Speakeasy Coffee Co. "Since the coffee and espresso is heated quite heavily that's OK, and then we use milk for most of our products. We are also able to serve cold brew coffee, since we had plenty of water set aside before the water main break happened."

Other businesses are adapting to having no safe water.

"We are being effected by it totally," said Shonda Babers, manager of Kidd's on Broadway. "About half of our business we can't do. Of course, we can't sell anything that involves water -- so none of our smoothies, coffees, gourmet drinks. We can't use any of that at the moment."

Babers said customer reaction has been mixed.

"Some complain. Some are understanding," she said. "It's been messing our whole day up."

John Abernathy, human resources manager at Pepsi Mid America distributors in Cape Girardeau, said the company is mobilizing additional bottled water shipments.

“We’ve been getting calls from every local Walmart, basically all the stores and restaurants in the area, because they are not able to use their fountain drink stations,” he explained. “We are getting two trucks sent down from our bottling plant in Marion, Illinois, full of pallets of bottle water. They will be arriving today (Tuesday). Each truck carries 26 pallets. Since Cape is the only area affected, it shouldn’t be a huge problem for us to keep up with the demand.”