Popular watering holes were not watered down by Hurricane Gustav.University students and Baton Rouge residents may not have been prepared for the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav, but some local businesses were.Restaurants and bars like Brightside Bar and Grill, Walk-On’s Bistreaux and Bar, and Zippy’s were open for business the day after the storm struck Monday, leaving residents and the University without power.Although electricity had not been restored, Zippy’s opened at regular business hours Tuesday at 11 a.m. and stayed open until the curfew at 8 p.m.”We open whether there is power or not,” said Zippy’s owner Neal Hendrick. “Everyone is just so great to us, and people needed a place to go.”Zippy’s served about 800 customers during the day with just gas in the kitchen and ice.”We were able to make quesadillas and margaritas and beer on the rocks,” Hendrick said.Gustav was not the first hurricane Zippy’s has opened for.”We open for every hurricane,” Hendrick said. “We were open for Rita, Katrina and two before that.”He said customers came from everywhere.”We had students, people from the neighborhood and people just looking for a place to eat,” he said. “If it says ‘open’ on the board, people pull in.”Zippy’s was not the only restaurant in Baton Rouge bustling with hungry and anxious customers.In the six hours Walk-On’s was open Tuesday, it served 400 customers, fry house manager Jeff Fendalson said.It opened at 2 p.m. that afternoon and ran on a generator half the day until power was restored at the restaurant around 7 or 8 p.m.”We had a limited menu, but we cooked as much and as fast as we could,” Fendalson said. “We were short-staffed and pulled in whoever we could find because some of the staff had evacuated.”He said the restaurant was just as busy Wednesday and Thursday.”People were just trying to find refuge, power, A/C and warm food,” Fendalson said. Brightside Bar and Grill also had the luxury of a generator and was able to open at 4 p.m. the day after the storm.”I put the sign out and at 3:45 p.m. there were 40 people in line outside the door,” said owner Kevin Carmack. “Later, I was so busy with the food that I could not tell how many customers there were throughout the day.”Brightside was only able to serve fried food, like chicken fingers and french fries on Tuesday, but there was still an hour wait, Carmack said. The next couple of days it was able to serve a wider variety of food, such as hamburgers and shrimp po-boys.But food and drink were not the only service these businesses offered. They also provided televised updates for customers still without cable and Internet. Zippy’s customers watched the weather and news until gas in the generator ran out, Hendrick said.”People don’t want to sit in the house,” he said. “They want to get out and talk to people.”Walk-On’s customers also watched the weather and news the entire time they were at the restaurant, Fendalson said.”People needed a place to hang out and watch TV,” he said. “They wanted to figure out what was going on and get as much information as they could.”But Brightside customers were unable to watch television Tuesday because Cox cable was not working, Carmack said. On Wednesday they were glued to the television, he said.Despite the destitute situation, customers generally seemed to be in good spirits and having a good time.And they were thankful for a distraction from the storm.”People really appreciate [us being open],” Hendrick said. “They have come up to us and said how great we are. It is a good feeling.”And students agreed it was a good idea for the restaurants to open immediately following the storm.”It’s a great idea,” said Chris Normand, industrial engineering junior. “It gives people something to do.”Some students were unaware these businesses were open and wish they would have known.”We wanted somewhere to go,” said Annabelle Grimes, English freshman. “If we would have known they were open, we probably would have gone.”—-Contact Drew Belle Zerby at [email protected]