Businesses Starting From Scratch After Days Without Power

LEOMINSTER (CBS) - Gail Kamataris-Prizio has checked the Leominster family business every day this week and for the first time this morning it was lights on. Tim's Diner lost power last Saturday night at the height of the storm and has had a "closed for business" sign in the window ever since.

A Leominster institution for 56 years, the diner has never missed a beat like this one.

"At 82 years old I'm devastated. I don't need this at my age," said Lorraine Kamataris, owner of the business.

WBZ-TV's Beth Germano reports

She estimates the losses at over six thousand dollars when everything has been tallied. "I got my kids working under me and they're not getting paid this week. We don't have the money," she said. They also threw away all the food that spoiled during the outage, including bacon, eggs, beef and that's just the beginning.

"It's been awful. I miss all the customers," she said.

At Pizza Chef in Leominster the losses are similar. Power only returned to the shop on Wednesday and owner Florian Nako is not sure how he'll recover financially. He just opened the business three weeks ago.

"I'll have to go into my savings to make it up," he said. "I'm in the process of talking with the insurance company about what's covered but it's not looking good."

He tried to keep much of the food on ice, but the outage was too long and he had to empty his freezer. He's happy now to be juggling busy lunch orders.

"Things are getting back to normal, but it's a lot more work for me to get everything ready. It's like starting from scratch," said Nako.

The mayor of Leominster says he'll appeal to the federal government to help the businesses recoup some of their losses.