Businesses bounce back once switch finally flicked on in Darwin

BUSINESSES across the Top End fared well in the wake of Wednesday's blackout, with most making up for lost business during the surge when power returned

Fannie Bay Cool Spot sales assistant Clemence Le Bot takes on a rapidly melting ice cream. Picture: Che Chorley

BUSINESSES across the Top End fared well in the wake of Wednesday's blackout, with most making up for lost business during the surge when power returned.

Fannie Bay Cool Spot chef Krishna Bhupathi said the restaurant feared it would lose ice-cream and dessert stock but customers flocked through the door when power came back on about 6.45pm.

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“After that we were packed out,” he said.

“We usually get about 140-150 patrons in a night, but we ended up doing 90 in the first hour (with power back).

“Today everything is fine.

“We wanted to open up because we thought other businesses would be closed and people wouldn’t have power and we knew people would come back.”

Hospitality NT chief executive Alex Bruce said luckily venues that lost power didn't seem to lose too much stock or business.

“It was definitely a mixed bag,” he said. “Anyone that had power started taking calls from their customers almost immediately, (asking) did they still have power, and we think they got a bit of a benefit from those that couldn’t cook at home coming out.

“We were happy the power came back as quickly as it did, it’d probably be a different story if it was still out now.”

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Mr Bruce said there was an incident in Katherine where Police Auxiliary Liquor Inspectors had “inappropriately ceased trade at a bottle shop”, but it was a good exercise to ensure Police and Licensing were aware of the correct procedure during a power outage.

Originally published as Businesses bounce back once switch finally flicked on in Darwin