WAPA SITUATION CRITICAL WE ARE GOING DARK SOON????

I remember some one saying that since this guy had a subway he knew what he was doing in the restaurant business. And what I mean to say is owning a subway is night and day from owning a restaurant. Subway has a very low franchise fee. Last time I looked Subway and Curves where the 2 cheapest franchises out there. And while subways menu may seem extensive to some its actually a very smart small menu with the same ingredients being used over and over. The spaces are usually small and should not have alot of overhead. IHOP on the other had has a massive 24 hour menu, with a much larger staff and space, with a big franchise fee. The 24 hr thing alone should have run off a restaurant newbie. It would take a extremely viligant manager/owner to keep a staff that large in line here on island.

Sorry for the rant the bit about him being experience because he owned a subway always seemed rather poor logic to me and rubbed me the wrong way....rant over.

The Papa Johns on STX closed after just a few months. Great product, started in Louisville, KY and smart owner. But in the states, the business model is based on pizza DELIVERY. How the hell did they think they would deliver pizza here??

The Papa Johns on STX closed after just a few months. Great product, started in Louisville, KY and smart owner. But in the states, the business model is based on pizza DELIVERY. How the hell did they think they would deliver pizza here??

LOL, sorry I know this is OT from Wapa but I can't help it 🙂 Interesting observation about Papa John's, a counterpoint is that Domino's has been here for years and in the states no one picks up their pizza from Domino's. Trying to get them to deliver here is an amusing endeavor, I've never made that work even when I lived in Questa Verde. The Papa John's here was atrocious, I would phone in a pizza order (which was $8 more than the same pizza at Domino's), get there 30 minutes later, and still have to wait 30 minutes for my pizza. It was so chaotic too, no one knew what was going on, just a nightmare the few times I went there. Napoleon's, who moved into that space, has much better pizza and I hope is doing ok. They are my favorite pie outside of NYC, they do a great job even by mainland standards IMO!

As for my earlier comments, I want to make it clear that I am not trying to say that WAPA alone led to poor quality food at IHOP, was just using the IHOP situation as an example.

Sean

Rancid grease & half raw eggs with burned hash browns cooked in the rancid grease had nothing to do with power. No need to rant, Betty but someone with a Subway franchise would know you had to keep on top of a restaurant. They weren't open 24 hours/day as far as I know either. There were staff standing around while customers waited & waited & waited for service. This is flat out poor management. It was great when the Stateside people were down to train but went very slowly downhill after that. Pancakes are about the cheapest thing possible to sell with extremely high margins. Breakfast food seemed to be the most type food they served also.

I'm sorry to see them go also & enjoyed it while it lasted but what they were putting out wouldn't have kept them in business even if they had free WAPA & they were observably much less busy long before WAPA went through the roof.

While to me the mall may have been a preferred location, he could have found a less expensive place to rent. He never had any restaurant experience that I know off. He was a senator that decided not to run again. He then started to buy Subway franchises one by one. Then sold or closed some. Then spent a lot of money on build out for the IHOP. He probably;y could have built a nicer place with a mortgage that would be less than his build out and rent per month. JMHO.

LOL Trade, sounds like the IHOP's I've been to in the states then 🙂

Sean

This was worse than any Ihop I've been to. :@)

Serviced my generator today after this mornings WAPA outage and rechecked my operating cost to generate a Kwh of electricity running my generator at half throttle. For gas and oil it costs me $0.69 to generate a Kwh of electricity using $3.90 per gallon gasoline.

If you include depreciation on the generator my total cost is $1.29 per Kwh.

Let hope that WAPA keeps the lights on somehow.

Jim

Yesterday i had my generator check and it showed that so far this month its been in used 2 hours which i think is very good so far

Many people do not have their generators set up to automatically kick in every time the power goes off for a few minutes.

i think we've used our twice in 8 years

I put mine on manual. I couldn't take it starting in the middle of the night. I also shut off the auto exercise thing. i just start it up evey couple of weeks. I keep my gas tanks off and turn them on to cook or generate.

I really want to put in some kind of solar or wind thing just to keep the fridge going during the day.

Lucky you! I ran mine thirty hours in July when we lost a cable. A couple of more hours in August.

Jim

Has anyone seen if WAPA has raised the cash to pay for next weeks oil? Or is the end coming soon?

Also for those interested in alternative energy read the article in Wikapedia about wind turbines. For a number of reasons you can only generate 20% of your power using wind because of unpredictable fluctuations. Denmark is the only country generating more than 20% of their power using wind and they can get away with doing it because of interconnections with other European power grids.

Jim

From http://www.onepaper.com/stthomasvi/?v=d&i=&s=News:Local&p=1212901477

Aug. 22, 2008 -- After much debate, a voluntary reduction in the amount and an amended motion, Public Services commissioners agreed Friday to allow the V.I. Water and Power Authority to collect the increased cost of oil from consumers, along with previously uncollected cost-of-oil increases.
"We are between a concrete wall and a blue-bit rock," said commissioner Donald "Ducks" Cole, who later introduced a motion to give WAPA 0.02 cents less than its reduced request and then amended it to give the authority an increase on the LEAC (Levelized Energy Adjustment Clause) to 0.41 cents per kilowatt hour. This is an increase of 0.08 cents over the current LEAC, and will mean an average increase of $40 based on the average monthly residential consumption of 500 kilowatt hours.

WAPA's original request was for 0.45 cent LEAC, but Nellon Bowry, chief financial officer, reduced the request during the hearing to 0.41 cents in light of the recent decrease in the per-barrel cost of oil.

Did WAPA forget to send their payment to Hovensa? Power is out on east end of STX and has been for thirty minutes.

Jim

We got power in STT??? I have talk to some people from St Croix regarding Wapa power outages in St Croix vs St thomas what i have realize is that St Croix get's more frequent power outages than STT. I have been told that Wapa tries to do better in STT because is more touristy than St Croix and they don't want to give a bad impression.

Unfortunately, money won't cure all of WAPA's ills. BTW--did anyone read the letter to editor from the WAPA board in the Avis this weekend? It was rather long but the gist of it was "please be patient with us".

I believe the random outages are pretty much that, random and short. And evenly distributed between STT and STX. I barely notice it when it's out for half an hour or less.

I am wondering . . . do you report outages regularly or normally just wait it out? When power went out last night I just adapted, lit some oil lamps and got out the gas stove. BF wanted me to call WAPA, I did try but never actually got to report it. Their message said there were no current outages. Since I could see by lack of lights no one else had power I knew I was no alone and figured WAPA knew about it.

At work, we always call to report it. Usually they let you know what happened and the expected wait time. We just closed down last night as the place gets hot quick without AC!
I say call them and bug them.

Noah

I never call anymore, ever since we moved to the east end outages are always under an hour (knock on wood). We just go outside and hang out with the rest of the neighbors. Its almost a nice occurance to catch up with everyone, but only because it doesnt happen often.

When we lived in la grande princess outages were often, like two a week and long. So we always called to find out how long.

Isn't WAPA government owned???? ..................... Need I say more
Everything the government is involved in gets sucked dry........and why should the people of STT STJ STX suffer while the vamps continue to drain....... But hey the weather sure is nice:P

Does anyone know if anyplace sells Propane powered Refrigerators on STX???
Thanks!

Try GBH ........... Gallows Bay Hardware