Taco Shop Keeps Going Despite Power Outage

(Memphis) Every customer matters.

Unfortunately for the owners of Elena’s Taco Shop, they saw some of those customers walk out the door Friday morning thanks to a power outage.

“The power’s out,” said a worker.

“OK thanks,” said a customer who didn’t have cash.

“Sorry about that.”

The credit card machine went down when thousands in East Memphis lost power because of a morning thunderstorm.

It wasn’t great timing for a business trying to build a customer base.

“This is a brand new thing and people are barely starting to get comfortable with us,” said Co-Owner Pedro Gonzales. “No electricity? ‘Oh, we’ll go somewhere else’.”

For Gonzales, the credit card machine wasn’t the only problem, “We can’t open the freezers otherwise the food will go bad.”

Two thousand dollars worth of meat and produce were on the line as a worker ran out to buy the new taco shop a couple of generators.

“Yeah, we definitely didn’t prepare for power outages,” said Gonzales.

The power outage caused cars to pile up at the intersection of Summer Ave and Raleigh- LaGrange.

Inside Elena’s, business carried on and costumers who stayed got served.

“It’s impressive he can still stay in business even though the powers out. He seems to be prepared,” said Customer Justin Ragsdale.

That’s all that matters to Gonzales, that customers keep coming back to see how good the tacos really are with the lights on.

The taco shop had the two generators installed and saw its power restored by 11:51 a.m.

Two minutes later, power to the entire East Memphis neighborhood was restored.

The outage lasted about two and a half hours.