Waterbury restaurant struggles after water main breaks force 6-day closure

WATERBURY, Conn. (WFSB) — Verdi Restaurant at the Western Hills Golf Club has reopened after two water main breaks last week forced it to close for six days, cancel more than 100 reservations and refund several events.

Owner Anthony D’Amelio said the restaurant was the only business affected by both breaks. The closure comes as D’Amelio is still repaying a loan he took out after a separate water main break last December also forced him to shut down.

“I had to go out and borrow money to keep our doors open,” D’Amelio said. “So, I was hoping to put a big dent in that loan over the summer months. But now with this happening, it’s making it really challenging.”

The only event the restaurant kept on its books during the closure was a 70-person wedding reception, which was completed using bottled water for cooking and under supervision from the health department.

“Through the help of the health department, setting some guidelines that we followed, strict protocol, that was the only event that we were able to do,” D’Amelio said. “Thank god we were able to pull that off.”

D’Amelio said the lost revenue from the week cannot be recovered.

“It’s hard to make up. we’ll never make up the revenue that was lost,” he said. “It makes it very, very challenging to make ends meet.”

Ray Esponda, Waterbury’s new water superintendent, said the city’s pipes are more than 100 years old and will continue to break. His focus is on upgrading critical valves throughout the system that can reduce the number of residents who lose water during a break.

Esponda said the next valve to be installed will be placed along the same water line that broke last week. He said that valve could have prevented 15,000 homes from losing water. The location will be somewhere in the Bunker Hill neighborhood, though he does not yet have a date for the installation.

Esponda has been on the job for less than a month. Before taking the role in Waterbury, he spent 25 years working on New Britain’s water system.

“I’m here with that experience,” Esponda said. “I will say this about Waterbury’s water system, it’s got some really good bones. We just need to give it a lot of TLC.”