'We're back:' Julienne Tomatoes bounces back from basement flood

PETOSKEY — After two months of cleaning, disinfecting and rebuilding their basement, Julienne Tomatoes reopened last week and has been packed with customers and well-wishers ever since.

“We've been met with tears, smiles, donations, hugs, gifts, relief; somebody told us they wouldn't even come back to Petoskey if we wouldn't have reopened because there was no reason for them to come here otherwise. So the reaction has been very positive,” owner Julie Adams said.

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In May, Adams received a call informing her there had been a sewer backup that had flooded the basement of her business with sewer water. The floor and walls were damaged, as well as four of their freezers, their walk-in cooler, dry food storage, catering equipment and supplies, and paper and disposable supplies for carry-out.

With the help of Bay Area Clean Care and the Julienne Tomatoes staff, the basement was cleaned, disinfected and rebuilt, including new freezers, a new cooler and storage.

“We rebuilt it to be functional and as affordable as possible since this all happened right in the middle of our busiest season,” Adams said.

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Thanks to the efforts of the Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce and members of the community who offered donations, Adams and Julienne Tomatoes manager Cally Plummer were able to pay their employees over the period and afford the cost of rebuilding their basement.

The chamber started a GoFundMe that raised $43,000 for the 19-year-old restaurant. Others made donations directly and many others bought gift cards for when the restaurant eventually opened up again.

“I always say you get what you picture and from the very beginning, I never pictured anything other than reopening,” Adams said. “You put your mind to something, you get focused and you get it done. And of course, it was a relief to have a clean dining room, clean tables, smiling faces from our crew and our customers, food on our shelves and to get back into the kitchen.”

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While the donations helped keep them afloat, the business still missed out on two of their busiest months of the year. January through April tends to be slower seasons for local businesses. Summer is when many businesses make the majority of their money for the year, which they often use as a cushion to get through the slower months.

The sewer backup in the basement of Julienne Tomatoes happened in early May, right at the start of the busy season and before the restaurant had time to build up that financial cushion.

“Our goals are making money,” Adams said. “We lost two of the most important months of the year in a restaurant that's been in business for 19 years. So the main goal is to do what we got to do to make some money and stay focused on taking care of this business and the people that run it.”

As Adams and Plummer walked through the dining room, customers congratulated them on reopening and expressed their excitement for seeing the restaurant open again.

“I think a big testament to how we run a business is that the day we opened up, we had first-time customers come in and they had no idea what we had been through,” Plummer said.

“And that means to me that we pulled off a seamless opening and that's what we were going for. Yes, we had been closed for two months, but someone just walking in the door for the first time had no idea and that's pretty amazing.”

Plummer had previously described a restaurant’s upstairs as its right hand and its basement as its left hand.

“We can’t function without (them),” she said.

While there is still work to do to make the basement more seamless, Julienne Tomatoes has its left hand back and can once again serve the Petoskey community.

Contact reporter Tess Ware at tware@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter, @Tess_Petoskey 

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Julienne Tomatoes reopens after sewer backup flooded basement