Dennis McFarland ordered a turkey reuben sandwich.
His wife, Patty, a fan of breakfast at lunchtime, opted for eggs Benedict.
A little more than a week after flash flood waters damaged MICHAEL’S A.M., the regulars returned to the Akron restaurant, unfazed by any cosmetic challenges.
“We eat here several times a week. Couple of times a week, at least,” Dennis said Friday afternoon.
“The [flood damage] didn’t bother us.”
That’s welcome news not only for the local eatery but also for neighboring businesses in the Valley Centre Plaza, located on Akron Peninsula Road in the Merriman Valley neighborhood. Last Thursday evening, three to five inches of flooding closed roads, stranded cars and forced residents and businesses to clean a sudden influx of water and mud.
Nicole Lee, who owns the plaza as well as two on-site businesses, said back in 2006, it took weeks for regulars and new customers to return to the area locally referred to as “The Valley.”
This time, Lee wants residents and the surrounding communities to know this shopping center is ready for business. Pardon any lingering dirt in the parking lot – shops are open.
“Small business owners, they get in there,” said Lee, who owns Nicole’s Connection — a laundromat and tanning salon — as well as an ice cream shop. “This is their livelihood, so they get in there and they do it.”
That includes QV Nails, Lavender Lane Beauty Studios and a Subway location.
Lee half-joked about one of the beauty salons in the plaza repairing flooring in between serving customers: “Their customers need to get their hair done. So they don’t care what the floor looks like, know what I mean?”
At Don Jose Mexican Cuisine, the lunch special on Friday was Burrito Jose’s, a combination of grilled steak or chicken with caramelized onions, rice and beans covered in cheese dip and topped with chorizo, pineapple and shrimp.
Next door, Tamica Shavers, the owner of The Signature Events, glanced at her event space as workers loaded water-damaged laminate flooring into a nearby work van. More water-resistant vinyl flooring will take its place.
During normal times, the facility would host a day program during the week, part of her home healthcare agency. Baby showers, graduation parties, nonprofit meetings and line dancing and yoga classes fill out the event calendar.
But unlike other businesses that are operating with dried but not replaced flooring, or no flooring at all, her enterprise, she believes, can’t serve as an event destination until it’s immaculate again.
The cleanup process is taxing, but Shavers hopes the space will reopen Monday.
“I’m just going to stay at home,” Shavers said of her plans once her business returns to business. “Go to sleep. That’s it.”
Well, that’s not all.
As a self reward, she and her husband, Terrence, and their three children are looking forward to a trip to Jamaica.
“I said, ‘We need to go,’” Tamica Shavers said. “We planned it after this [happened].”
