Businesses reopen to messy parklets on State Street due to storm in Santa Barbara

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Zen Yai Thai Cuisine is up and running on State Street in Santa Barbara.

But since the rainstorm businesses has been slow.

"We closed obviously because there was no people walking and there was flood all over the road," said server Thanvarath Pinyochon of Zen Yai Thai Cuisine.

Once the rainstorm ended, the cuisine reopened bringing in less than half their usual sales each day.

"Yeah business is slow. Because people don’t come out and they’re scared. And then there’s mud all over the road and it’s not convenient for people to travel so our business slowed down a lot," said Pinyochon.

Just across the street, crews spent hours trying to fix damage to the cellular service caused by the rain.

"It’s pretty bad this area gets very flooded and any time it floods in this area we get a lot of cellular underground that gets flooded as well," said field technician Steven Hernandez of ComScape.

Crews say damage to the cellular outage affected several businesses including the 99 Cent Store.

"There’s a lot of mud water debris and lots of work to be done," said Hernandez.

Cindy Young runs Santa Barbara Community Housing near State Street.

She came inside the cuisine to support the local business.

"Well everybody on state street is struggling right now. With the storm we don’t have the tourists. So we try and support the businesses down here," said Young.

The cuisine plans to stay open throughout the rest of the week despite this weekend's expected rainstorm.