SOMERSET, Ky. (LEX 18) — Many businesses in southern Kentucky have been closed for weeks after May's deadly tornado destroyed their workplaces, including one Baxter's Coffee location in Somerset.
The company is now working on a temporary spot to serve customers after the EF-4 tornado ripped through one of its four locations on Highway 27 Bypass in Pulaski County.
"It just is unreal, quite honestly," said Ann Cook, a manager at Baxter's Coffee.
For over two decades, employees at Baxter's Coffee called the Highway 27 Bypass location home until the tornado struck last month.
"Lost a lot, like so many of our neighbors in this community," Cook said.
But even on the cloudiest days, Cook is trying to find a ray of sunshine.
"There's nothing that we lost that can't be rebuilt or replaced. We're so fortunate that we have other locations to service our community," she said.
Cook emphasized how much worse the situation could have been.
"You realize that it could have been during the day, it could have been employees and customers involved," she said. "And this was obviously not expected, but we will roll with the punches."
Now work is underway on a temporary shop, a block away from their previous location, just until they can build a new cafe.
"Before we figured out that we could come here and rent this, we thought, okay, we've got to do something, we've got to get back to our people," Cook said.
Their short-term spot used to be a Baskin-Robbins.
"It already had a drive through ready to go, so we are excited to be here in the temporary," she said.
While tornado victims are handling the recovery process in different ways, Cook says she's looking at this situation as a way to grow the business, not one that slows things down.
"Going to be exciting for us as a company, for the employees and hope like are the customers," Cook said.
