Cornerstone Pub & Kitchen, Barre
“The Covid shutdown prepared us mentally for this situation. I don’t know how I would have handled this one if it weren’t for lessons learned during the pandemic. It’ll take about a year to make up for what we’ve lost and the expenses we’ve racked up replacing everything. And that doesn’t even include lost sales.” –Mike Allen, General Manager, Cornerstone Pub & Kitchen
This is an edited and consolidated conversation Maria Reade had in the pub with Travis Maney, director of operations, and Mike Allen, general manager. Owner Rich McSheffrey was at the bank. Maria compiled the italicized parts after watching videos Rich had posted to Facebook in the first days after the flood. Those sections provide a glimpse into Rich’s own experience of the flood and its aftermath. We knew the rain was coming, but we had no idea it would be this bad. Everything happened so quickly.
A friend texted and said he was driving past Cornerstone, and it looks like water might be going in the back door. Our dumpsters were floating, but we still didn’t realize the impact. There was no water in the basement at that point. A couple of hours later, we had 5 feet of water down there.
The water came from Stevens Branch, an offshoot of the Winooski River, just off the parking lot. The force of the water was incredible. It poured into the basement through the back door.
Cornerstone owner Rich McSheffrey and general manager Mike Allen get in Mike’s truck on Monday afternoon and drive down to check the scene. Rich takes out his phone and videos what he sees from the passenger seat, narrating the scene as a muddy river rages down Main Street. “We’re at the Cornerstone and this is not good. This is going to be a sad day for Barre. Oh no. Oh no.” A shocked Rich just repeats, “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.”
As fast as the water came, it left just as quickly. But it left mud all over. What a mess.
The next morning after the floodwaters have receded, Rich takes video as he walks through his pub’s basement to assess the destruction for the first time. He splashes through gray muck on the floor in what used to be a dry storage area and sees everything wet, covered in mud, trashed. All the compressors and electrical panels wrecked, freezers floating, refrigerators flipped over on their sides, CO2 tanks and soda lines ruined, cases of destroyed food and drink strewn across the floor. Nothing is where it was when they closed the pub on Saturday night, July 8.
On Tuesday, we pumped the basement water out to the parking lot. It looked like a beach out there with a foot or more of sand and silt. Later in the week, Rich power-washed the parking lot.
On Thursday, July 13, Rich walks through the same basement, only this time it’s filled with volunteers who formed a bucket brigade to empty out everything they could get their hands on and put in a 5-gallon bucket, garbage pail, or rubber dishpan. The brigade was 100 people strong, standing shoulder to shoulder, each handing a filled bucket to the next person as the buckets made their way through the basement and up the staircase to the dumpsters stationed in the parking lot behind the restaurant. Rich has no words to express his utter gratitude to these community members who helped with the gnarly task of mucking out the drenched chaos below street level.
We were probably the hardest hit restaurant in Barre. Once we got out the junk, we were at a standstill while ServPro gave the basement the cleaning and drying out it needed. Then we had to replace refrigeration and compressors and everything else we lost in the flood. Shout-out to Alpine ACR here in Berlin. We delayed reopening in order to tackle some projects that needed to be done after 10 years, including deep-cleaning and painting the upstairs. We closed the doors and spent six weeks here and did most of the work ourselves.
The Covid shutdown prepared us mentally for this situation. I don’t know how I would have handled this one if it weren’t for lessons learned during the pandemic. It’ll take about a year to make up for what we’ve lost and the expenses we’ve racked up replacing everything. And that doesn’t even include lost sales. Restaurant owners provide a service, as a gathering place, as a place that brings jobs. Opening up on August 23 felt great. We’re just trying to do what made us successful the last 10-plus years: provide pub food done well and take care of the community.
But now when it rains, we think twice.
