NEW ORLEANS —
Big orange barricades block the path to the Canal Street Ruby Slipper Café and the restaurant’s doors are closed, but the food orders they're taking now are more important than ever.
The café’s location is in a zone the City of New Orleans ordered evacuated after the partial collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel construction site Saturday morning. Ruby Slipper employees said first they got their customers safely out of the store and then they jumped into action.
“We grabbed a bunch of food from our other locations and immediately started to feed first responders,” said employee Victoria Millsap. “We've been doing that every morning since, and will for the rest of the week and as probably as long as these crews are out here.”
A crew of rescue workers are working around the clock to secure the dangerous Hard Rock site. Ruby Slipper and a few other local restaurants have taken on the task of fueling them up to keep them going.
“There are a lot of people crying, praying over each other,” said Millsap.
The meals started as a donation but that favor has now turned back into business.
“(Citadel) the construction company is now paying the vendors that have already donated a lot of food the past couple days,” said Millsap. “Now we can pay out and get orders from these vendors. So we switched from donations to recouping some of that money.”
According to Kurt Weigle, president and CEO of the Downtown Development District, nearly a dozen other businesses are still shut down inside the evacuation zone.
“The hardest part of this for everybody is not knowing,” said Weigle.
Weigle says while the businesses are focused on making sure everyone is safe, they're turning to insurance.
“I’ve heard very strong concerns about employees. Some of the businesses that shut down are trying to find a way employees can get paid while business is shut down,” said Weigle. “Those who have business interruption insurance are starting to contact their carriers.”
Weigle says as more is released about the complex nature of this unstable situation, there is fear the collapse will heavily impact all business downtown.
“People are not sure if they can come downtown at all,” said Weigle. “One of the things we talked about with the city is creating maps on how to get to parts of downtown that are not impacted that you can still walk to. It's important to start getting info out now to support downtown businesses.”
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