‘Bad to worse’: Flooded restaurant was recently repaired after fire

The owner of a suburban restaurant recently ravaged by a “gut wrenching” fire and now the Auckland floods, is urging other small business owners to insure every item in stock.

Sarah Newsom, co-owner of El Greco Greek Restaurant in Campbell’s Bay, watched the near two-metre-high floodwaters rise rapidly underneath her restaurant on Friday evening as customers were dining upstairs, causing staff cars to swim and drums of oil and gas canisters to float.

“It was just a crazy, crazy scene. The water came so quick.”

El Greco restaurant owners Sarah Newson and Kostas Grigorakis during clean-up after the Campbell's Bay restaurant was flooded during record rainfall in Auckland. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Four of her teenage staff members were taking breaks downstairs when the flood waters started rising.

“My son went in to help them out ... they were clambering over the fridge to get out.

“Everyone was safe which is more important than anything.”

The flood lifted staff cars parked behind the El Greco restaurant in Auckland's Campbell's Bay.

She said they called emergency services on Friday evening but their call went unanswered.

“There was nothing anyone could do anyway, we just had to wait it out.”

As the clean-up commenced on Sunday morning with the help of about 20 local volunteers, the extent of the damage was revealed.

Fridges and cellars stocked with months’ worth of food and alcohol had to be thrown out. Furniture and freezers were done for too.

“I would expect it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Because of the situation the country is in as far as food is concerned, we do stock enough so that we’ve got enough for the restaurant. It’s really not looking good.

Newsom knew to account for every destroyed item for insurance purposes. The restaurant was ravaged by a fire in June 2020, which took seven months to repair and reopen.

“The [fire] was awful, just gut-wrenching.

“The two things we’ve learned this time and last time - insurance and safety.”

She urged all business owners to get insured and update policies regularly to ensure everything was covered.

An insurance assessor would visit the restaurant on Monday and the restaurant could open as soon as next week, once food was restocked and fridges were operating.

Newsom said her insurer, Crombie Lockwood, had been “awesome to deal with” so far.

“They’re always there. They’re insanely good.”

On its website, Crombie Lockwood advised customers affected by the floods to list all water-damaged items on an insurance claim form with as much information as possible, including the age of the item, where it was purchased and its price. It asked customers to try to provide receipts.

It also advised taking photos or videos of damaged items, including the brand and serial number if possible, and airing out the property as much as possible and removing any wet carpet and underlay.

Items were not to be thrown out until an insurance assessor had visited the premises, the notice said.