Each time customers opened the door to enter the soul food restaurant — which had been featured on several local news programs and was included on a list of New York’s top 10 restaurants of 2019 — they were greeted with an apology.
“I’m sorry, my love,” the owner would say. “We’re closed, indefinitely.”
Millie Peartree, who owns Millie Peartree Fish Fry & Soul Food in the Fordham section of the Bronx, has been without cooking gas since late November.
After an inspection found unauthorized gas plumbing work in the building, the gas service was shut off, leaving Ms. Peartree’s restaurant, as well as the residents of the five-story building on Grand Concourse, unable use their stoves and ovens.
It is unclear who was doing work in the building, but a complaint logged by the New York City Department of Buildings noted “theft of service.”
“This hurts,” said Ms. Peartree, whose only source of income was the restaurant. “You need warm food. It’s the base of comfort.”
Ms. Peartree, 38, opened her fish fry in 2017. Since then, she’s expanded her space on Grand Concourse and gained a robust following — one she now fears losing.
Ordinarily, the warm, rustic dining room would be bustling. Customers had come in droves to sit beneath the bright suspended lights and dine on fried whiting or catfish strips, shrimp baskets or chicken wings. One could order sides of collard greens or fried corn. “Call it glory,” one food critic wrote of the baked macaroni and cheese.
Ms. Peartree had ordered a substantial amount of food on the Friday the gas was turned off.
She ended up stuck with about 90 pounds of fish and no flame to fry it, as well as about 80 pounds of chicken wings and “about 40 pounds of macaroni and cheese all prepared and ready to go for the weekend rush,” she said.
She donated some of that inventory to friends and residents of the building: “I was going to lose it all anyway.”
Ms. Peartree had to let go her small team of employees and use her savings to keep up with bills over the past several weeks.
She asked her landlord to terminate her lease early, but so far Stellar Management has refused, she said. At home — she lives a few blocks away from the restaurant — she turned off the heat to save money, she said.
“I just wanted to cook fish and be here for my community,” she said, her eyes welling with tears.
In a statement, a representative of Stellar Management, the property owner, said, “Management takes gas service disruptions seriously and is working closely with Con Edison, engineers and licensed contractors to restore service to the building as quickly as possible.”
The gas was shut off on Nov. 22, according to Consolidated Edison, the city’s electric and gas utility company. Residents still have heat and hot water, but have not been able to use their stoves or ovens for over a month.
To have service restored, Stellar Management was advised to make the required repairs and submit a formal work request for the unauthorized piping that was discovered.
Con Edison has not yet received notification that the work has been completed, according to the utility company.
Con Edison responded to more than 46,000 calls last year reporting gas odors. Of those, leaks were identified in a little more than half. Approximately 85 percent of the leaks identified were associated with customer equipment, according to the utility company.
Only a very small percentage of leaks identified result in disrupted service for more than a short period of time, but gas leaks are a danger the utility company takes seriously.
In March 2015, contractors at a building in the East Village installed an illegal gas line that proved deadly, resulting in an explosion that leveled half the block, killing two people and injuring 13 others.
Last November, the general contractor and an unlicensed plumber were found guilty of manslaughter and other related charges.
About a year before that incident, a crack in a gas main caused an explosion in East Harlem that leveled two buildings and left eight people dead.
While Ms. Peartree understands the concern for safety, she and other residents say the circumstance has gone from disruption to challenge to hardship.
Residents were told repairing the gas lines and restoring service could be a six to eight month process.
The statement from Stellar Management noted that electric hot plates were distributed to all residents within 24 hours of the gas being turned off.
“Our residents’ safety remains our top priority,” the statement continued. “We apologize for any inconvenience, as we await Con Edison’s final determination as to when gas service can be restored.”
Once repairs are complete, the property owner would contact the Department of Buildings to authorize and inspect the work so that Con Edison could make the final inspection and restore service.
But building residents are frustrated.
“We’re human beings that need to live, we’re not animals,” said Kywon Nesbitt, 32, who has lived in the building for about two years. “We deserve better.”
Ms. Nesbitt, who lives above the fish fry with her boyfriend and 13-year-old son, said her holidays were ruined because she couldn’t cook. She said she had been spending close to $100 a day on takeout meals for the three of them, including the Chinese food they ordered for Christmas dinner.
Ms. Nesbitt said that she tried cooking bacon on a hot plate, but the meat took about 35 minutes to heat up. The plate slipped, spilling hot oil across her toes and her son’s thigh, she said.
“We filled the tub with cold water, sat inside it and cried,” Ms. Nesbitt recalled. “This has just been traumatizing.”
According to Ms. Nesbitt, residents have been sharing food and checking in with one another.
One recent afternoon, the restaurant’s steel shutter had been lifted and the lights illuminated the barn wood wall panels and a handful of empty tables.
Behind the counter, Ms. Peartree milled around the empty kitchen.
The door cracked open and a woman, dressed in her Sunday best and tailed by a man of the same age, peered in. Her voice carried over the empty counter: “Hello?”
Ms. Peartree turned around, offering what’s become her standard apology.
“We’re no longer open, my love,” she said as she strolled toward the door and explained the gas outage.
“Oh, dear, I’m sorry to hear that,” the woman replied, slowly turning back to exit onto the brisk sidewalk. “I’ve heard some really good things about this place.”
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