{"id":312726,"date":"2026-05-12T23:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T23:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312726\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T23:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T23:28:12","slug":"oakland-county-water-main-break-leaves-restaurants-closed-business-owners-frustrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312726\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland County water main break leaves restaurants closed, business owners frustrated"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Oakland <\/p>\n

FOX 2 – The water main break is affecting businesses in several Oakland County communities \u2014 one industry really feeling the pinch is restaurants.<\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

Many had to close Mother\u2019s Day and are still shuttered, waiting for the chance to open. It appears all they can do is wait until given the green light.<\/p>\n

While the water main has been replaced at this point \u2014 systems need to be flushed, pressure needs to be restored and it\u2019s really a case-by-case basis depending on the community.<\/p>\n

FOX 2 visited both Auburn Hills and downtown Lake Orion \u2014 talking to pizza places that missed out on Mother\u2019s Day sales \u2014 one of the biggest days for restaurants.<\/p>\n

Now they\u2019re trying to figure out what to do and how to operate \u2014 because some do have water and have brought water in from the outside.<\/p>\n

Cottage Inn Pizza in Auburn Hills says the communication has not been ideal, and they were hoping to open this morning \u2014 sick pizza in Lake Orion is trying to figure out a solution using their food truck \u2014 for both businesses they want to open ASAP.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“You have hundreds of customers a day,” said Tom Bailey, owner of Sick Pizza. “The bills don\u2019t stop. You somehow have to figure out how to make that work. Obviously, your employees’ bills don\u2019t stop, so you’ve got to keep them working as well. And you\u2019ve got to figure out how to keep them working as well. We just have to get through it together.”<\/p>\n

FOX 2: “What has downtown looked like the pay couple days?”<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a ghost town,” he said. “There\u2019s nobody in and out of here. Businesses have been closed. It\u2019s crazy. The residents, they’re not allowed to take showers or anything like that. We have so many employees we moved a lot of them up to Oxford so they can keep working.”<\/p>\n

“We have about 15 people working here,” said Bill McDonald, owner of Cottage Inn Pizza, Auburn Hills. “And basically had to tell them they were indefinitely not working until we find out something from the city. It\u2019s been super spotty on what we\u2019re hearing. These guys have kids and families, and some of them, it\u2019s the only source of income. it\u2019s a big deal.<\/p>\n

\"Damaged <\/p>\n

“We\u2019re probably one of 100 restaurants that\u2019s closed, so it\u2019s a lot of people not working right now. When things open back up make sure to tip your servers, order some carryout and try to help everybody out.”<\/p>\n

Related:<\/p>\n

Cottage Inn Pizza did receive an update from the city late this afternoon that they can restart carry out service.<\/p>\n

Sick Pizza is planning to have their food truck ready to go and give their employees something to do and to feed the community.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Tom Bailey, owner, Sick Pizza. <\/p>\n

The Source: Information for this report is from two pizza restaurant owners impacted by the water main break and public officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Auburn Hills<\/a>Lake Orion<\/a>Oakland County<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FOX 2 – The water main break is affecting businesses in several Oakland County communities \u2014 one industry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3443,6655,249,100,143,904,145,144,1181],"class_list":["post-312726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-auburn-hills","tag-lake-orion","tag-mi","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}