A restaurant that was flooded by Hurricane Helene has hopes to reopen as soon as possible. The business is getting a little help from the city of Â鶹´«Ã½.
Town Tavern has been closed since the Catawba River flooded the restaurant after Hurricane Helene, but work has been underway to get the restaurant reopened, according to posts on Town Tavern’s Facebook page.
Broken furniture, tableware, cups and dishes littered the inside of Town Tavern in Â鶹´«Ã½ in October 2024. The sports bar and restaurant was one of many businesses hit by flash floods brought on by Hurricane Helene.
Owners Jeff Lamont and Justin Davis were given a $75,000 small business loan to help restore the restaurant to its pre-hurricane condition.
“They are desperate to be back as soon as possible and we are very excited about that,†Â鶹´«Ã½ City Manager Sally Sandy said.
Reopening the business will create at least 10 jobs, Sandy said. If loan payments are made on time and the restaurant completes its business plan, half of the loan will be forgiven after five years.
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While Town Tavern is still working on reopening, Sandy said other businesses in the same shopping center, River Village, are set to reopen sooner.
She said the city is working with the property owners to get the spaces open.
The city’s boardwalk behind the shopping center, part of the Catawba River Greenway, is still mangled, but Sandy said she expects repair work to start soon. She said she hopes to have bids to demolish the structure ready for the city council to approve at its March meeting.
Elsewhere on the greenway, Sandy said crews have already removed about 1,200 tons of silt flooding dumped on the trail. She said city staff now believe as much as 2,500 tons of silt could be removed from the greenway by the time that part of the cleanup process is done.
All of the greenway remains closed.
Scuba divers to assess damage
In other Hurricane Helene news, the council approved a contract with a scuba diving company to finish assessing damage to the equipment at the city’s water and wastewater treatment plants.
Brad Boris, director of the city’s water and wastewater departments, said hurricane flooding submerged equipment and brought in debris and sediment that could have caused damage to the plants.
The council agreed to work with Charles R. Underwood Inc. for the contracts for both the water and wastewater plants. The contract for the water plant will not exceed $34,512.50, and the wastewater contract will not exceed $39,993.50.
“We are still in assessment mode and we are still working at less than full capacity at everything,†Sandy said. “Those are two larger projects that we’re working through the FEMA grant process right now, so we’re going to be talking about this for a while.â€
Other Helene changes included two budget amendments moving funds to the city’s Helene Project Fund:
- $120,000 was moved from the cable fund to make permanent repairs to the city’s cable, internet and telephone services.
- $250,000 was moved from the electric fund for supplies and to continue assessing damaged transformers and determine what other repairs are needed there.
