South Coast businesses still reeling from Hurricane Beryl’s wrath

Nearly a year after Hurricane Beryl lashed Barbados, south coast entrepreneurs are still piecing together their businesses—revealing a recovery story marked by self-reliance and frustration with official support.

While government aid and insurance payouts have fallen short for many, owners have told Barbados TODAY of resilience, private investment, and hard-won lessons as the true drivers behind their ongoing fight to stay afloat.

Julie Leblanc, one of the business partners of Chill Café Bar & Grill, located near the Hastings boardwalk, shared the challenges her team faced in the aftermath of the storm with Barbados TODAY.

“Honestly, [I’m being] very transparent, if we didn’t have investors that had the means, financial means of putting us back on track, we would still be dead right now. Like we did not get any support from the government entities or anybody, nothing at all,” she explained.

Even attempts to secure financial assistance were futile. Leblanc recounted how a local bank had advertised pre-approved loans for storm-affected businesses, only for her to be told the offer applied exclusively to new customers.

The issue of insurance, she said, proved equally frustrating. Though Chill Café was fully insured for its equipment and infrastructure, the claim process dragged on.

Leblanc was candid about her experience: “Don’t even start talking about insurance, that’s another nightmare to itself. We are fully insured for the value of equipment that we have there and everything else, [but] It took forever to get the claim process and get back on money. Actually, we got back only about 40 per cent of what it cost us to get back on track and that was paid out [after] we were reopened. So if we were in a situation where we had to wait for the insured fund to rebuild, up to this date, I’m sure we would not be operational.”

With their seaside location leaving them particularly vulnerable, the bar has since made several changes to mitigate future risks. The restaurant’s kitchen—previously a wooden structure—was replaced with a more durable shipping container.

“Well the idea is that we could remove as much as possible if another hurricane comes by. So because we’re right by the sea, obviously there, there’s not much that we could bolt into the ground because when you start digging, you need water. So the best thing we could do is trying to have equipment that is as movable as possible so that if something else comes, we just pick up everything, store it, and then wait for the hurricane to pass,” she said.

But she also expressed concern over a lack of communication surrounding ongoing work on the Hastings boardwalk, which bore the brunt of Beryl’s storm surge.

She explained: “They are doing something with the boardwalk right now. But again, they’re doing this and they’re not letting anybody, at least we didn’t get any information on what they’re doing exactly. Are they trying to rebuild to make it stronger so that if there’s another surge, water could probably be absorbed somewhere else? I have no idea.”

Just down the road at Tapas Restaurant, owner Alfredo Giovine echoed similar sentiments of self-reliance, but said his team managed to bounce back relatively quickly.

“Well, the impact was pretty strong,” he said. “We got a quite a good set of damage and we were shut for a month downstairs, we were able to be running upstairs. But luckily we managed to recover pretty fast.”

As part of their rebuilding strategy, Tapas has made structural adjustments to protect against future storms, including installing steel poles from BRC to reinforce their shutters.

“There’s always a learning curve, so every year you’re learning something new,” he said. “So of course my fridges are now a little bit higher, so we try not to leave anything on the ground, and especially if you know that bad weather is coming, the furniture has to go up. You know, put in place measures that can prevent or alleviate damages.”

Despite the setbacks, Giovine acknowledged the collective efforts that helped speed up recovery.

shamarblunt@barbadostoday.bb