Warehouse losses won’t affect other Nu-Way sites

Despite the fire Friday at its downtown Macon store and warehouse, Nu-Way Weiners’ other restaurants remained open, and some of them were swamped.

Yolanda Tipton, who works at the Baconsfield Nu-Way off Gray Highway, said about 3 p.m. Friday the store had already tripled its normal business for the day.

After the early morning fire at the Cotton Avenue eatery, some people used social media to encourage customers to show their support Friday by eating at Nu-Way.

The lunch crowd at the Northside Drive store at Forest Hill Road was “way above average,” employee Carlishia Williams said. “We’ve been like chickens with our heads cut off. We’re running out of things.”

Even though the Northside store didn’t have some items such as cole slaw and onions, “nobody is being mean,” Tipton said. “Everybody’s been real sympathetic -- it’s like somebody passed away.”

Jim Cacavias, who co-owns Nu-Way with Spyros Dermatas, said it had been a bad Friday the 13th, but he and Dermatas have been “so humbled from the outpouring from the entire community.”

Some food was prepared in the rear of the downtown store -- including cole slaw and sliced tomatoes and onions -- that went out to other stores.

“Everything else, we decided years ago ... to sub it out” to a third party, Cacavias said. “We knew we made the right decision back then, because if we still conducted business like we did 20 years ago, all of Nu-Way would probably be closed.”

The business was in the middle of contracting out the cole slaw, “but that’s a work in progress,” he said. More cabbage is on the way, and Cacavias said he hopes to have slaw back in the stores by Saturday. It will be prepared in the stores for now.

Only a small amount of emergency supplies, such as extra cups, lids and straws, were kept in the warehouse portion of the building that burned, he said.

Workers from the downtown store will work at the other midstate stores, he said.

Tipton, at Baconsfield, said they had been trying to hire recently, so “we are going to take on some of those employees,” until the downtown store reopens.

The Cotton Avenue restaurant “will be out of commission for I guesstimate nine to 10 months for a rebuild,” Cacavias said.

To contact writer Linda S. Morris, call 744-4223.

This story was originally published March 13, 2015 at 6:06 PM.