After Hurricane Ian flooded the local Metro Diner, the restaurant’s team, comprised largely of UCF students, came together to help it re-open on Sunday.
Metro Diner is a local diner chain restaurant on University Boulevard that aims to provide familiar comfort food dishes for a ”UCF student missing mom’s cooking,” or anyone else in the area, according to its website.
Managing partner Selina Baxter-Stacey said Metro Diner has employed 50 UCF students in the past year and currently has 25 UCF students as part of its team.
As the hurricane moved across Central Florida on Thursday morning, there was no flooding at Metro Diner. But by 10:30 a.m., the water started rising on University Boulevard. By 2:30 p.m., flash flooding in the area caused approximately 2 feet of water in the restaurant.
“We have a lot of team members that rely on this job to pay their rents,” Baxter-Stacey said. “When I got back here on Thursday at about 2:30 p.m., I felt that I was going to be sick when I saw the flooding because I did not know what we were going to do.”
Baxter-Stacey said she was troubled because she knew many people needed to eat and work. However, the diner had to close its doors to the public from Wednesday to Friday.
“It has hit hard. It is amazing how this area got flooded, and it was after the hurricane, which is why we don’t understand,” Baxter-Stacey said while wearing her tall Hunter aqua boots. “If my team members need food during this time, then I will give it to them because it is tough at the moment, and they are not getting paid.”
On Thursday, Baxter-Stacey called people for help, but the water from the parking lot was higher than the water inside, so they could not push it out of the diner. However, on Friday, the water began retracting, and they were able to push it out as a team.
Many of the diner’s team members, including students, came out on Friday with buckets, mops and brooms to help take all the water from the diner while wearing their rubber boots.
“I have a great team helping open this up, so I could not do this on my own, and it is a team effort, which is what Metro is all about,” Baxter-Stacey said.
Baxter-Stacey said that she was unsure when to open up Metro Diner because most of the water in the parking lot covered about a foot above a person’s ankles.
Aundrea Seegert, an education major at Valencia College, is one of the students from the team who helped get all the water out of Metro Diner with a broom and mop on Friday afternoon.
“It is super sad because this is the one place that we are like, ‘OK, we are going to go back to work on Friday,’ ‘OK, so we are not,'” Seegert said. “So, we are just trying to open up for Sunday.”
By Saturday, there was no water in the parking lot and the restaurant only took delivery and to-go orders.
Robert Gorett, Metro Diner’s kitchen manager, reflected an optimistic spirit as he helped clean and disinfect kitchen areas on Friday.
“It’s a fun job,” Gorett said. “I left another job just to be a part of this family.”
He also came to work on Saturday for delivery and to-go orders.
“We had a lot of our team members come out to help us today, which is amazing because they did not have to, but they wanted to because no one wants this place to go under,” Gorett said.
The help wasn’t one-sided. Before the flooding even happened, Baxter-Stacey said she was trying to do what she could to help students who stayed throughout the storm, and she hopes to help those who left when they come back.
“If anyone is stuck, they can come to me, and we can help them out because we are a family,” Baxter-Stacey said.
To ease the students’ economic burden, Baxter-Stacey offered free food such as burgers, eggs and anything off the menu before and after the hurricane to her team members still in town and in their time of need. Even if they were not working that day, her team members could go to Metro Diner and ask for free food to-go.
Baxter-Stacey had prepared before the hurricane, so she did not lose much of her product. She provided whatever her team needed, even during the flash flood.
“The UCF team members and staff at the Metro Diner can access food for free until they get paid and start working,” Baxter-Stacey said.
Mia Ross, a sophomore non-profit management major at UCF, works at Metro Diner and also lives within walking distance of the business. She said that Baxter-Stacey reached out to her as soon as the diner started to flood with water.
“Selina knew that the water would also impact me, so she asked me how I was holding up,” Ross said. “Metro Diner has given us support on many things because they know we are students.”
Ross said that she considers herself lucky because she lives on the third floor. However, she had to evacuate as the rain and sewer water contaminated the area.
“I don’t have my apartment right now, so I am just sitting around doing nothing, waiting to return to my apartment,” Ross said. “It is nice to be able to work, even when I had called off the weekend.”
While Baxter-Stacey was talking, she stopped to look out the window because a person yelled out, “love Metro Diner”; Baxter-Stacey started laughing.
“There you go; they said ‘love Metro Diner.’ We get a lot of UCF students here, so we are local,” Baxter-Stacey said.
Metro Diner is now open to the public. UCF students and other staff, who now have their regular work schedules back, will be there to greet guests.