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CNN Live Saturday
Businesses Return Today In New York
Aired August 16, 2003 - 14:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRITY PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Weekend businesses powered up and opened their doors to customers in New York today. CNN's Michael Okwu joins us now live. How are you Michael?
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm doing just fine, Christy. It's a warm wonderful day in New York City, and most importantly the power is back up. This is one of the most busy restaurants here in the very trendy section of the meat packing district in lower part of Manhattan, and they took a very, very big hit on Friday and Thursday nights, of course, when the power outage occurred. They usually do some 500 to 600 tables of business on those two nights, but not to happen.
It's really the little things that you take for granted, being able to boil water, not having to peel potatoes in the darkness and also being able to put away some of your food, your produce in refrigerators. These are some of the things they were not able to do. They lost expensive cuts of meats and fish but they are clearly expecting to bounce back.
I am here now with Larry Posten who is the manager here at Pastis. Why is it so important that the power came back up when it did, obviously we all want it, but why is important to your business?
LARRY POSTEN, MANAGER PASTIS: Right, well I think in a time like this when it's chaotic and the power is down, you want to have a sense of normalcy. Some since of like familiarity with the situation. Pastis being such a hot spot, a grand destination for a lot of people, it's important for us to get up and be in service so people wouldn't be as panicked as they would be in a normal situation.
OKWU: The other thing is if you are serving 500 or 600 people a night and that happens over the course of a few nights, it's going to hit your business, isn't it?
POSTEN: Of course, but we are not alone in that, it hit a lot of businesses. We are one of those real super restaurants thought, we're back in service, we served last night, actually serving today, a little bit of a limited menu just because of the kitchen and getting things back and running on track as normal. But we are here for everyone and doing it as usual.
OKWU: It looks like everyone is enjoying your service, too.
POSTEN: Thank you very much, Larry Posten. A lot of these people, by the way, probably got here on the subways. I mean some 4.4 million New Yorkers use the subways every weekend. They were able to use those subways because they're back up and running. The airports are up and running. As you look at these pictures of the subway system. Things are getting back to normal here in New York City. Back to you Christy.
PAUL: All right, thank you so much Michael we appreciate it. And like they say, you don't know what you have got until it's gone. So another lesson learned. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 16, 2003 - 14:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRITY PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Weekend businesses powered up and opened their doors to customers in New York today. CNN's Michael Okwu joins us now live. How are you Michael?
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm doing just fine, Christy. It's a warm wonderful day in New York City, and most importantly the power is back up. This is one of the most busy restaurants here in the very trendy section of the meat packing district in lower part of Manhattan, and they took a very, very big hit on Friday and Thursday nights, of course, when the power outage occurred. They usually do some 500 to 600 tables of business on those two nights, but not to happen.
It's really the little things that you take for granted, being able to boil water, not having to peel potatoes in the darkness and also being able to put away some of your food, your produce in refrigerators. These are some of the things they were not able to do. They lost expensive cuts of meats and fish but they are clearly expecting to bounce back.
I am here now with Larry Posten who is the manager here at Pastis. Why is it so important that the power came back up when it did, obviously we all want it, but why is important to your business?
LARRY POSTEN, MANAGER PASTIS: Right, well I think in a time like this when it's chaotic and the power is down, you want to have a sense of normalcy. Some since of like familiarity with the situation. Pastis being such a hot spot, a grand destination for a lot of people, it's important for us to get up and be in service so people wouldn't be as panicked as they would be in a normal situation.
OKWU: The other thing is if you are serving 500 or 600 people a night and that happens over the course of a few nights, it's going to hit your business, isn't it?
POSTEN: Of course, but we are not alone in that, it hit a lot of businesses. We are one of those real super restaurants thought, we're back in service, we served last night, actually serving today, a little bit of a limited menu just because of the kitchen and getting things back and running on track as normal. But we are here for everyone and doing it as usual.
OKWU: It looks like everyone is enjoying your service, too.
POSTEN: Thank you very much, Larry Posten. A lot of these people, by the way, probably got here on the subways. I mean some 4.4 million New Yorkers use the subways every weekend. They were able to use those subways because they're back up and running. The airports are up and running. As you look at these pictures of the subway system. Things are getting back to normal here in New York City. Back to you Christy.
PAUL: All right, thank you so much Michael we appreciate it. And like they say, you don't know what you have got until it's gone. So another lesson learned. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
