Business & Tech

Hope After Sandy: Pepi's Back Open For Business

The restaurant is open from Fridays through Mondays.

For over a year after Sandy whipped the North Fork with fierce winds and rain, a battered restaurant in Southold remained closed and broken, a sad victim of the storm. 

But now, signs along Route 25 in Southold advertise the good news: Pepi's is back open for business.

Pepi's is open Friday through Monday for lunch and dinner. For additional information, call 631-765-6373.

In October, Pepi's co-owner Pepi Nikolov announced the welcome news: The restaurant would reopen.

"We're working on it, but we don't know exactly when we will open. Everything goes slowly," she said at the time.

Plans are in place for pretty much the same Italian favorites, but with "way more seafood," Nikolov said.

Reflecting on Sandy, Nikolov said the storm "was devastating. It's still devastating, after one year. It was my living — that was my life," she said. "When you have a restaurant, you are married to that restaurant. You're there seven days a week, 24 hours a day. it's like your child."

For months, a yellow sign proclaimed the building unsafe; the structure had been boarded up since the storm. 

Outside, a placard told diners to visit the Red Rooster in Cutchogue, run by Nikolov.

Pepi's opened 14 years ago near Port Of Egypt on Route 25 in Southold.

Sandy slammed the outdoor seating deck into the indoor dining area, leaving the building open and exposed. 

At the time, Nikolov and her husband Nick said they were uncertain if they would rebuild or move on. "It's not only us who lost," she said after the storm. "My heart goes out to everyone. "



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