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While this week’s storms have given way to sunshine, a popular St. Paul neighborhood restaurant is still dealing with the effects of Tuesday’s downpour.

Instead of scrambling eggs at the Capital View Café, they’re scraping mud.

“We came around the corner and it was just like a sea of mud,” said Shannon Bauer, a co-owner of the restaurant. “You could see ripples you could see where things were knocked over from the force of the mud coming in through the basement.”

After Tuesday night’s downpour, the basement of the Capital View Café was soaked in mud and muck. Everything the restaurant keeps in storage on its side, floating, drenched or mud covered.

“I think we all wanted to cry at least about 10,000 times yesterday,” said Bauer.


Not only was it all a shock, disappointing customers is tough and there are a lot of them.

“I think we turned away a hundred plus customers yesterday,” said Danielle King, a co-owner of the restaurant.

The three women took ownership just seven weeks ago. Bauer has waited tables at the cafe for thirteen years. Until now, the restaurant has never been forced to close.

“This is my home away from home,” said Bauer. “My children have worked here. My oldest daughter has been here for 10 years, my youngest daughter has been here for about three years.”

The trio says they’re strong women. They’ll stick together just like the mud in the basement - only they’re here to stay, the mud isn’t.

They hope to open Saturday, but the owners also say that's optimistic.

It's unclear why the flooding happened, but the owners believe nearby construction could have been a factor. Xcel Energy released the following statement:

"We understand the inconvenience that construction projects can cause, especially when they result in issues like this one. As soon as we learned what happened, we worked with our contractor to secure cleaning services and get insurance companies involved to manage the process and assess the damage."