All hands on deck to reopen bar hit by Storm Arwen
GLASS BLOWN OUT BY GALE-FORCE WINDS
WINDS from Storm Arwen destroyed a glass wall at a Hull rooftop bar and restaurant, leaving staff with a huge clean-up operation before it could reopen.
Staff at The Junkyard in Bond Street have been working tirelessly to clear up the damage left behind by the gale-force winds of Storm Arwen.
The management of The Junkyard were gutted on Saturday morning to find that an internal glass wall had shattered, showering glass all over tables and chairs.
However, manager Mac, owner Khosrow and the rest of the team worked hard to clear up so the bar could reopen that evening.
Mac, 29, said: “When I left the house this morning I was worried, I thought with the weather that things weren’t sounding good for us.
“We’ve got a rooftop terrace so I was thinking about the furniture up there, but when I got to the building I saw one of the lifts wasn’t working and that made me think things could be much worse.
“When I got upstairs there was just glass everywhere. It was chaos, there was a breeze blowing through. I think one of the fire escapes has come loose and there was a window at the other end of the restaurant open a crack.
“It was like a wind tunnel and it has blown the glass out.
“We rang the rest of the staff and told them not to come in yet and started calling customers to tell them we won’t be open.”
The initial feeling was bleak at the restaurant as the staff that were in set about the task of calling the 140 people booked in for the busiest night of the week to tell them they would not be open due to the damage.
However, thanks to the quick response of workmen it looked likely that they could reopen that night.
When Hull Live arrived at floor 12 of the K2 building they were in the midst of calling back all of the customers who had been told the venue would be closed to offer them their tables back.
Understandably, many of the customers had made alternative plans and Mac said people were welcome to call in for a table as they may now have many free.
He said: “We were gutted, it is our busiest night of the week by far. 140 we had booked in and we had to call them all to let them know we didn’t think we could be open.
“Obviously now we’ve got the opposite problem, Khosrow has called all the staff to get them back in and we’ve got to get in touch with the customers again.
“We think that most people have seen the Facebook posts but for anyone that hasn’t, we will be open again and we’re doing everything we can to make that happen.”