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Businesses continued cleanup Tuesday, working to re-open their doors to customers after multiple tornadoes caused extensive damage through the San Antonio area, but the BurgerFi in the Alamo Heights area may have served their last patty.
As a crew cleaned up at the chain’s Oak Park Village shopping center location in the 1900 block of Nacogdoches Road Tuesday, BurgerFi employees outside said property management is considering not renewing the restaurant’s contract following the storm.
The shopping center was right in the path of the EF-1 tornado that hit the Alamo Heights area Sunday.
Steven Martinez, Esther Padilla, Richard Villegas, and Zach Moss, all supervisors at the chain, said they’re worried they may soon lose their jobs, as the restaurant’s property is currently being leased to them.
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Stream Realty, the company that manages and leases the shopping center, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
While BurgerFi employees considered what the future holds, clean-up crews and construction workers across Nacogdoches fed tree branches into wood chippers and patched roofs with gaping holes and missing shingles at the Carousel Court Shopping Center.
The horse figure that normally sits atop the shopping center’s entryway sign laid broken against a light fixture in the parking lot.
Some businesses, like South Texas Radiology Imaging Center, posted handwritten signs informing customers they were closed because of weather damage. Other storefronts were merely dark.
RELATED: Day 2: San Antonio communities help to restore businesses, homes damaged by tornadoes
Ramiro Valdez, owner of the Mexican restaurant La Posada Del Rey, said he and his wife JoAnn — who were the only ones left in the restaurant — ducked into the bathroom to shelter themselves from the incoming tornado.
“The (front) doors were shaking like someone was trying to open them,” Valdez said.
Neither Valdez or his wife were injured, but the storm broke one of the restaurant’s glass doors along with a few windows. Power had not been restored to the restaurant as of Tuesday afternoon, preventing Valdez from assessing how much refrigerated carne guisada, rice, ground beef, gravy and salsa among other prepared food he and his employees will need to replace in order to reopen.
RELATED: Mayor asks governor to declare San Antonio a disaster area in wake of tornado damage
The store won’t remain open for long. Valdez said he plans to close the business on Feb. 28 because he has been unable to break even since moving the restaurant from its previous Lincoln Heights location in 2014. But, he said he’s grateful he and his wife weren’t “sucked out” by the tornado.
“It could’ve taken my wife and I … We could’ve been flying out there,” Valdez said, laughing.
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