A power outage in the heart of Adelaide’s CBD has forced shops to close with retail, hospitality and service buildings hit with a power outage on Tuesday.
The outage, affecting 481 properties, struck just before noon, leaving several retailers with little option but to shut up shop for 1 ½ hours amid the darkness.
In Rundle Place, sandwich and salad store Soul Origin could accept only cash from customers because the power outage affected EFTPOS connections during the lunch time rush.
The basement food court was also affected, with stairs from Rundle Mall down to the precinct closed off.
Owner of Imperial Barbers Co. in the basement of Rundle Place, Hussein Atwani, told The Advertiser the power outage was a “big hit” to his business.
The 22-year-old said he had been forced to close for two hours when the power went off midway through two clients receiving haircuts.
“I was half way through cutting someone’s hair … I had to do the rest by flash (on my phone),” Mr Atwani said.
Meanwhile on Level 1 of Rundle Place, DoughBalls Pizza manager Rish Sharma, 35, said the venue had to cancel its only two bookings of the day due to the outage.
“We had four people come in at 11.50 and two minutes after they sat down, the power went off,” Mr Sharma said.
He said a 12.30pm booking of 10 also had to be cancelled.
“It’s been very dead this afternoon … we were expecting good money,” Mr Sharma said.
In Rundle Mall, the Apple store, lululemon, Cotton On, The Body Shop and R.M. Williams remained closed just after 1pm.
An SA Power Networks outage map showed that outage in the area around Grenfell St, including Rundle St and the eastern section of Rundle Mall.
A spokesperson said all power was restored by 1.15pm and that the cause of the outage was unknown but unrelated to another failure linked to the water-affected Coromandel Place substation late last month.
“Crews investigating today’s outage found a cable fault in Grenfell Street. Power was restored to all customers by 1.15pm,” they said.
“The cause of the fault is not yet known.”
Elsewhere, DESSINI Style Boutique on Henley Beach Rd was forced to close early due to “limited power supply” following an electrical fire on Saturday.
“Unfortunately, we have found it challenging to continue trading with the limited power supply, among other factors,” the store wrote on Facebook.
“We had every positive intention of minimising interruptions to our trading; however, these challenges have become overwhelming and are unfortunately beyond our control. As a result, we have decided to close early today.
“We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience, understanding, and continued support.
“We will keep you updated and let you know as soon as we are able to reopen.”