Zins celebrates one year post-flood, other not so lukcy

On a day many people want to forget, the owners of a flood affected business are embracing it.

June 11, 2008 goes down in history as the day evacuations forced many of the home and business owners away from their places in Cedar Rapids. The rising Cedar River wouldn't crest for at least another day.

It's taken a while to come back, and one success story is at Zins Restaurant.

“It is who we are, it is part of the city. It is part of everything. Is it our best moment, no. Is it horrible it happened, yes. But a lot of good things have come out of it,” said Amy Wyss of Zins Restaurant.

The eatery opened for a short while before the flood, then were flooded out. A year later they reopened, and have stayed in business ever since. Not every company shared the same luck.

“It's not fair to be able to say that every business is struggling downtown, but it's also not fair to save every business is thriving, everybody is in a unique place,” said Quinn Pettifer with the Downtown District.

Next door to Zins is Blend. They reopened after the flood, but closed earlier this year. Ginsberg Jewlery never reopened their downtown location, but instead moved to another part of town.

“In the long run, it's going to hurt us, not to have more restaurants, not to have more bars, more reasons to be here,” said Wyss.

The latest numbers from the Small Business Recovery Group show almost 90 percent of the businesses came back.

But so far, 90 have already closed.

Pettifer said having a healthy downtown is important because it contains a lot of jobs. She said downtown Cedar Rapids is home to more than 1,500 businesses, and employs 1,300 people.