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Operators use weather disasters to spread the word

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GALVESTON Texas Perhaps the only good thing about Hurricane Ike's September visit was the fact that “he” gave a full week's warning to the Texas Gulf Coast.

That allowed the corporate headquarters crew at Jason's Deli in Beaumont, Texas, to prepare its post-storm readiness plan — its second for 2008, after the one that the chain drafted in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav. Stores in the affected area would be positioned to reopen quickly to feed returning evacuees, yet perhaps more importantly, stores further inland, as far away as Dallas, would be prepared to produce and truck thousands of boxed lunches for sale to power crews scrambled to the region.

"That's a significant amount of business for us," said Joe Tortorice, co-founder and president of 195-unit Jason's, which has units in 25 states. Despite his executive status, Tortorice was on the sandwich line after the storm. "But I’m not spinning this as a donation; this is business and we sell those. We provide a service to these guys who need food, but it's also very good marketing exposure for us because these guys come from all over."

Eric Lippman also was ready when Ike arrived: first hunkered down at his home in Cypress, Texas, a Houston suburb, and then in the kitchen of his restaurant, EJ's Neighborhood Pizzeria and Italian Eatery, when power came on 24 hours after Ike's Sept. 6 landfall. The near-blackout conditions viewed on the drive to work convinced Lippman business might boom that day if he could meet demand.

"When the phone started ringing, I got telephone orders for 50 and 100 pizzas at a time," Lippman said, adding that he assumed such large tickets were going to feed groups in need. Unable to leave the store and assist relief efforts himself, Lippman passed out loads of free pizza and drink coupons to relief agencies hoping he could at least feed them while they worked. "Indirectly, we were assisting. But we also were on an hour wait in the dining room, and that was good for business."

Having been through past storms, Lippman said that knowing how to prepare his shop — unplug POS terminals to avoid surge damage, lock all alcohol in walk-in coolers, take as much ice into walk-ins as possible — improved chances that he'd be operational more quickly than most. But he clearly was surprised that an e-mail marketing service he uses drove many storm-weary customers to his store.

"I already have a thousand people in my database, and so we sent out a message that we were open," said Lippman, who also told TV and radio stations the same. "But even though a lot of people didn't have access to the Internet, when you get just one person who does, it spreads over cell phones like wildfire. We had one lady who said a friend in Dallas was on the e-mail list, and she called her to say, 'Go to EJ's. They're open.' "

Nearly a week after tearing through Texas, the remnants of Hurricane Ike turned northeast and became an unexpectedly powerful windstorm, delivering hurricane-force winds to Louisville, Ky. More than 300,000 residents and businesses lost power on Sept. 14, leaving many operators without electricity for refrigeration and fretting over spoiling food. Among them was Michael Kerns, general manager at Amici Cafe, who invited the neighborhood to a $10-per-plate pasta and risotto dinner at the 70-seat spot.

"We wanted to do something for the neighborhood since they support us all year," said Kerns, who fed about 40 customers. "Our advantage was to use the food instead of lose it, and at least we could get some exposure from it."

On the other side of Louisville, Sweet Surrender Dessert Cafe owner Jessica Haskell gave away 14 fully decorated cakes to a fire crew stationed across the street. She also had lost power and needed to use her inventory, but she wanted to do something for crews working overtime to remove thousands of trees tangled in power lines.

"Of course it's a way to get the word out" about my business, Haskell said. "But it's also a way to show them we appreciate what they're doing. They eventually called other fire departments to come and pick up some of the cakes for themselves."

John Besh, owner of Restaurant August, Besh Steak and Luke in New Orleans, learned at the hand of Hurricane Katrina how prepared he needed to be when the next tempest came. According to his publicist, Simone Rathle, following that disaster, Besh acquired a mobile kitchen that he used to serve victims of Hurricane Gustav, which soaked Louisiana in August. His restaurants also reopened quickly after the storm passed.

"Yes, being one of the first opened [after Gustav] brought much awareness to John and the restaurant, so you could say that was a good marketing tool," Rathle said in an e-mail. "As for doing what he did to gain long-term customers — that was not something John purposely pursued for his business. … People support others that support them, and that is a lot of the good that came out of this storm."

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