“It’s a blessing”, local restaurants help communities in dire straits following Helene

AUGUSTA (WJBF) – People from all over are dealing with Helene’s aftermath. Even with everything that’s happened, some local business are opening their doors to let people buy something they haven’t had in days — a hot meal.

Jason Parrish is the owner of Mosh Pits.

“We’ve been very lucky and blessed to have a business that wasn’t affected structurally by the storm. We have generators so we were able to save all our food. All of our coolers are working. We a cold kitchen so we can serve most of our menu right now.”

Parrish opened on a Sunday, a day the business is normally closed.

“We were just going to be sitting here anyways. So we figured if we could use our platform to help the community, be able to serve them for a few hours today even though we are  not normally open.’

Owner of El Rey, Ramiro Galvan, is getting hot meals to the community and giving back to those trying to help.

“Right now we have our food truck set up right in front of our Washington Road location and of course we’re selling plates and if you know any linemen, or you see a linemen doing work, or a police officer or firefighters, send them our way. We’re giving free plates for them. We’re here just trying to do a little bit for our community.”

Both business owners are just happy to be able to serve the community.

“It feels amazing and it feels great. I can’t explain it. I’m lucky I have a restaurant to be able to,” Ramiro said.

“Blessed. We feel very blessed that we were able to do this. We could be sitting at home in worse conditions so we feel very blessed,” said Parrish

Community members we talked to say they’ve been adapting while the power gets restored.

Kai Faulk said, “We’ve basically been eating cold hotdogs for two days now.”

“We haven’t had any power since Friday morning,” remarked Mariah Wall

But their reaction to getting getting a good, hot meal during these hard times was priceless.

“Hallelujah!, Kai exclaimed, “That first bite felt like heaven because I haven’t had a hot meal for two days now.”

“I’m so thankful that we walked up and they let us in to order food be we were drastically under prepared,” Mariah said.

The owners encourage people to keep up with them and other businesses on Social Media  to see if or when they’re operating.

While times are hard, they’re positive that everyone can get through this together.

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