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Over the noon hour on a Friday, the Phillips Avenue Diner is typically a busy place where people gather for a warm meal, but Friday the business is empty and cold.
It's one of the many downtown Sioux Falls businesses impacted by a power outage. An underground transformer started on fire early Friday morning at 9th Street and Phillips Avenue, initially knocking out power to about 500 businesses in the area.
Diner employees were busy Friday morning looking for ways to minimize their losses from this outage. Losing business for an extended length of time is bad enough, so they're doing all they can to keep food from spoiling.
"We're really hoping that they can get things up and going by the afternoon and that's all we can do is wait it out be proactive while we're waiting," Phillips Ave. Diner General Manager Mark Gillespie said.
The Diner and Minervas are working together to bring in refrigerated and freezer trucks to store food. In a worst-case scenario, it is plenty cold outside yet, so some of the food could be kept frozen outdoors.