We are all too busy to par-tay anyway dealing with this cleanup. The morning after the hurricane (tropical storm Sandy is the official name now because she "technically" did not reach hurricane status according to the local news) we arrived here at Fruit Occasions ready to assess the damage. It can be broken down into two catagories: DAMAGE and POWER.
DAMAGE: Luckily, we prepared as best we could by taping up all of the store windows, taking in all of our signs, flags, and banners. None of Fruit Occasions actual property was damaged, BUT our parking lot was covered with downed trees, foliage, and other organic debris. We spent several hours cutting up downed trees (this was especially fun for Fruit Occasions awesome owner since he likes to get chainsaw happy from time to time). He was out there ripping his chainsaw through a mountain of wood and trees. Our wonderful employee Sanchez helped, cleaning up the leaves and clearing all of the debris. With a little elbow grease, sheer will power, and a chainsaw... our parking lot was cleaned up in no time! (actually it took a few hours).
Now, for the power failures:
POWER: Fruit Occasions ended up losing power like many many people in CT and areas the storm hit. Luckily Fruit Occasions is located in Hamden, CT which is a twenty minute drive from the shoreline, but not directly sitting on it. Our local friends from East Haven and West Haven, CT got hit real hard with flooding since Ms. Sandy decided to push all of the ocean water on to land! Anywho, the whole block lost power. Our neighbors at the mobile gas station had to close due to the power outage, and our other neighbors at the 7-11 were running on generators I believe.
PROBLEMS WITH LOSING POWER AT FRUIT OCCASIONS:
- The obvious: No lights/ no OPEN sign- This means customers won't know from the street that we are here and ready to serve you!
- Chocolate- The double boilers we use to heat up our chocolate stop working, hence... we cannot make any chocolate covered strawberries or other dipped fruits!
- The Cooler- With no electrictiy to power up our giant walk in cooler we keep all of fruits in, there is no way to keep our fruit cold! Or to cool down chocolate covered fruit! Luckily, the power outage lasted long enough as to where the fruit was fine. That big of a cooler stays cool for quite a while.
- The freezer- Our small freezer that we keep the fruit that is cut fresh then frozen in house for your fabulous smoothies begins will melt! We had to throw away, replace and wash all the fruit and containers.
- Phone- Without electricity our phones didn't work. Luckily, our phones run on batteries also so we were able to phone people, and customers were able to phone us.
The shocking thing was once we had cleaned everything up, about one hour in of having the store back up and running....all of sudden BOOM! All the lights went out, everything shut down once again. The power went off again! It wasn't until the evening that it had returned.
We are glad to say that Fruit Occasions IS OFFICIALLY OPEN and back to normal hours as of today, Oct. 31.
All local businesses that are still closed without power, we send our thoughts and cannot wait for everyone to be back normal, to be open and ready to serve Hamden and the rest of the local community. We are urging for things to return to normal and get the economy moving again!
As a little pick-me- up for many of our suffering customers... and as a little Halloween treat... Fruit Occasions is doing a one day strawberry special. All strawberry boxes for today only are $10.00 off! Come get them while you can!
Spooky Berries
Here is an image of our SPOOKY BERRIES! A yummy halloween treat! Chocolate covered strawberries dipped in white and dark chocolate, coated in delicious reeses peices candy!and for those of you that don't like peanut butter..........
The Masquerade Bouquet! YUM!
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