photo by: Journal-World File

Jefferson's Restaurant at 743 Massachusetts St.

Updated at 3:50 p.m. Thursday

Some Massachusetts Street businesses have had to deal with equipment repairs and closures this week in the wake of a power outage that was caused by a squirrel.

The outage occurred after 7 p.m. Monday and may have caused significant damage to equipment at Jefferson’s Restaurant, 743 Massachusetts St., which prevented the restaurant from operating, said Marina Zickefoose, a Jefferson’s general manager.

“Our hood vent motor was fried all the way through to the wiring,” Zickefoose said.

The power outage lasted only about two minutes, but when power returned the hood vents were not working, Zickefoose said.

“We are not sure yet if the power outage is what caused it,” Zickefoose said.

The damage has kept Jefferson’s closed all week while electricians have been identifying and repairing the problem wiring, she said.

“It will cost a lot in damage,” Zickefoose said. “It’s just unfortunate timing.”

On Thursday, Evergy told the Journal-World that the outage was caused by a squirrel. Around 7:15 p.m. Monday, a squirrel damaged one of three wires that feeds power to businesses on Massachusetts Street, Evergy spokeswoman Gina Penzig said. She said the outage affected about 200 customers along the 600 and 700 blocks of Massachusetts Street.

“We de-energized the circuit at 9 p.m. to repair the line, and crews worked until 2 a.m. to restore power,” Penzig said.

The damage to Jefferson’s and the attendant loss of revenue from being closed haven’t dampened Zickefoose’s spirit for the University of Kansas’ big basketball game on Saturday in the NCAA men’s Final Four.

“We’ll definitely be open for the game — rock chalk!” Zickefoose said.

She is optimistic that the restaurant will reopen around 4 p.m. Thursday. If not Thursday, she is sure it will be open by Saturday, when tipoff for KU’s game against Villanova is slated for 5:09 p.m.

Next door to Jefferson’s at Noodles & Company, 8 W. Eighth St., an employee remembers the moment that the power went out.

“Downtown just kind of went out for 30 or 40 seconds,” said the employee, who declined to give his name.

Noodles & Company was closed until 6 p.m. Wednesday, he said.

“We have had equipment issues because of the power outage that we have been dealing with the past few days,” he said.

The employee couldn’t go into detail about the extent of the damage but said Thursday that things were mostly back to normal.

Employees from other businesses on the block also said they were affected by the outage, including Salon Di Marco & day Spa, 733 Massachusetts St., and McColm Orthodontics, 12 W. Eighth St., but neither business was closed for an extended amount of time.