City Dock Restaurant is rebuilding and planning to open Thursday.
The pop-up restaurant, which sits on City Pier in New London, had to be removed last week ahead of Tropical Storm Henri.
“It is a complete mobile unit and it has to be able to move – especially during an emergency circumstance," said Kayla Broderick, general manager of City Dock Restaurant.
The restaurant is made out of two shipping containers. The containers, plus everything inside them and all of the patio furniture, had to be moved 48 hours before the storm.
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"Moving shipping containers is definitely a little bit more in-depth than just moving some tables and chairs," said Broderick. “From our palm trees to our tables, the containers, everything you see here was gone. This pier was completely empty.”
The shipping containers were taken away on special containers. Frozen food was moved to other nearby restaurants for storage. About two dozen people helped.
Now, the same team is working to put the restaurant back together.
"Organized chaos. You know, it’s a little chaotic. Of course there’s the push. We want to get open again," said Broderick. “We have almost got everything out of storage. Of course putting a puzzle together is little harder than taking it apart."
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Broderick said this is one of the risks of having a shoreline business. She said her team is thankful that the city did not get hit as hard as expected.
“We are so glad that it didn’t affect everybody," said Broderick. "It definitely affected us a lot."
Broderick estimates that the lost business plus the cost of disassembly will cost them about $50,000. She said they are eager to reopen as soon as possible. They plan to reopen Thursday.
"We will consider it like a mini re-grand opening if you will because we are back and better than ever," said Broderick.
