After winter storm, Nashville restaurants face losses as rent is due

When Winter Storm Fern swept through Middle Tennessee in late January, it knocked out power to roughly 250,000 Nashville Electric Service customers and forced businesses to discard spoiled inventory while absorbing days of lost revenue.

For restaurants, the disruption exposed a familiar vulnerability: profit margins so thin there’s little room for sudden shocks. Even brief closures can quickly become crises when payroll, utilities and rent continue piling up while dining rooms sit dark.

When dangerous storms like Fern roll in, diners’ habits change almost instantly, according to new data from the Fiserv Small Business Index.

Across the greater Nashville region, shoppers flooded grocery stores ahead of the storm, sending food sales up 113% on Jan. 23. Once ice hit, they hunkered down, and restaurant sales plunged 88% on Jan. 25 compared with the same Sunday a year earlier.

Tutti Da Gio stands closed in Hermitage, Tenn., Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. Several area restaurants have had trouble reopening following the ice storm in January.

Disruptions of any sort, from COVID-19 pandemic closures to ice storms, can trigger cascading decisions that leave owners choosing between rent and payroll, putting even long-running restaurants at risk.

Industry experts said timing is especially critical for independent, full-service restaurants, which often operate on margins as low as 3% to 5% in a typical month.

"This is why businesses that people love fail," said Michael Shemtov, co-owner of Butcher & Bee, which has been open on East Nashville's Main Street for a decade under the umbrella of Honest to Goodness Hospitality Group.

Some Nashville businesses were without power for up to 13 days. Combined with impassable roads and spoilage of already costly perishables, the storm created intense financial pressure during what is typically one of the slowest seasons of the year.

Middle Tennessee restaurants suffer big financial hit in the ice storm

When power was restored, Butcher & Bee's owners surveyed the damage, which they estimated at $60,000 to $70,000 in lost revenue and $5,000 to $10,000 in thrown-away perishables.

Shemtov and co-owner Jake Mogelson tried to balance the cost to refill their coolers, staff for a busy Valentine's Day weekend and pay the $25,000 monthly lease on their Main Street space.

To buy some time to get over the hump, they asked their landlords, Nashville-based McGavock Pike Partners, for a one-time, two-week extension on February rent, a request that was denied.

"Ownership has confirmed that February rent remains due on the 1st, and any late fees, interest, or events of default will be assessed in accordance with the lease," landlord representative Amber Rico wrote in a Feb. 3 email.

"We were asking for time," Mogelson said. "A couple of days can mean the difference between getting people back to work or not."

The Tennessean contacted McGavock Pike Partners for comment, but did not receive a response. The following day, however, Butcher & Bee received an additional back-rent invoice tied to a billing error, according to emails provided by the restaurant group.

An open pantry at Butcher & Bee in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Feb. 16, 2026.

Shemtov said the group ultimately covered the rent using personal funds to avoid penalties while absorbing storm-related losses.

Not every restaurant has that option.

Storm-related losses pile up for Nashville restaurants

Tutti da Gio owner Giovanna Orsino announced Feb. 6 that the restaurant would close its Hermitage location, citing ongoing challenges that were compounded by the storm.

"After a lot of long conversations and careful thought, we’ve made the difficult decision to close our Hermitage location," Orsino wrote on social media.

Orsino said the restaurant faced "ongoing challenges with staffing and consistent support tied to this specific location," as well as broader economic pressure affecting small businesses.

"The recent winter storm ultimately became the final push that made it clear we couldn’t continue to keep our doors open at our Hermitage location," she said.

Tutti Da Gio stands closed in Hermitage, Tenn., Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. Several area restaurants have had trouble reopening following the ice storm in January.

The storm’s impact was felt across the city.

At Bad Idea, the kitchen suffered nearly a complete loss of its goods, according to David Breeden, former executive chef at The French Laundry, who took over the kitchen in January. All condiments, prepared food, sauces, meats and more had to be destroyed.

"You just cannot risk it," Breeden said. "It's not even in the realm of possibility."

With typically slim restaurant profit margins — 15% would be a lucky haul in a very good month, Breeden said — every day of business counts. A week without a single service can be devastating.

"You can have a month that's totally cooked because of one week," he said. "It's just a huge setback, and it's really hard to get to the other side of that."

People cross the street on 31st Ave. in Nashville on Sunday, Jan. 25. 2026.

The storm's impact extended to staff as well as customers, many of whom also had to dispose of food at a time when groceries come at a premium and contend with costly home repairs and cleanup efforts following the storm, the chef said.

"There is a product element. There is a human element. There is a guest element," he said. "People were without power for 10 to 12 days. They are not going out and dining."

His greatest concern remained the workers who lost pay while also dealing with outages at home.

"That is 25% of their month's income," Breeden said. "How many people have that lying around?"

As ice storm hit, restaurants helped feed Nashville

As they managed the losses, restaurants and hospitality workers across Nashville stepped in as infrastructure failed.

One of the dining areas at Butcher & Bee in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Feb. 16, 2026.

Prince's Hot Chicken partnered with World Central Kitchen and the American Red Cross to distribute free meals across multiple neighborhoods. Brown's Diner hosted a parking lot cookout. Edley's Bar-B-Que offered free pork barbecue sandwiches at its Middle Tennessee locations. Resting Burrito Face served free burritos.

On West End Avenue, Pizza Hut employees stayed in a nearby hotel to keep the restaurant open, serving hot food and delivering pizzas on foot to neighbors without power.

Together, those efforts formed a patchwork safety net powered largely by the city’s food and hospitality community.

"That's hospitality," Krajeck said. "It's connected to the same idea."

At Folk, power outages disrupted service for nearly a week. Krajeck's staff worked to preserve what they could, shuttling perishables to Junior, where power remained on.

But some losses were unavoidable, and forced difficult decisions even after the immediate crisis passed.

"As a business owner, you have to ask yourself, 'Do I want to make an insurance claim?'" Krajeck said. "It's the slowest time of the year, so business interruption is tricky. If the risk of rates going up or getting dropped is high, you're trying to mitigate and pick the least bad option."

Brian Meija prepares food while speaking with Phil Krajeck, at Junior in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025.

Krajeck said the storm highlighted how vulnerable small, independent restaurants can be, even when they are deeply embedded in their communities.

"I am concerned for the local restaurant scene,' he said. "The small, independent restaurants owned and operated by people who came up here or chose to build something here and don't have giant private equity backing."

He contrasted those restaurants with larger groups operating at scale, with food contracts with big vendors.

The smaller operations, Krajeck said, "are a through line to supporting our community in agriculture and people who work the land here in Tennessee, whether it's vegetables or dairy or cheeses or proteins, all the things that make cooking and being here unique and, to me, what is genuinely the draw."