NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Tonya Pineda had not taken a single weekend off since opening Slow Burn Bookshop six months ago. The one weekend she did, a flood forced her to close during her busiest time of the week.
She says construction workers next door struck a sprinkler, sending water pouring into the shop while Pineda was away on vacation.
"I was on a boat, my landlord called me and I was freaking out," Pineda said. "Next door is doing construction. They hit a sprinkler off and it flooded into our space."
The flooding damaged floors, bookshelves and some books. Pineda estimated the incident caused about $18,000 in total damage.
"I mean, there's maybe like a handful of books that were damaged, maybe that have fallen or while they were extracting the water had fell," Pineda said.
The forced closure hit the business hard financially.
"We had to close all weekend. And that alone was like a $8,000 loss just from, you know, a small business, our busiest time of the week. We had to close. So it did suck," Pineda said.
The flood came just six months after the shop opened to an enthusiastic crowd.
"I think there was over 1600 people that came throughout that weekend, lines wrapped around," Pineda said.
Since the flood, customers have rallied around the business — selling out online pre-sales, RSVPing to upcoming events and spreading the word to others.
"That was always the goal building this, is to build a community. And I think I definitely accomplished that so far," Pineda said.
Insurance is covering most of the repairs. People can support Slow Burn Bookshop by attending events, checking out pre-sales and visiting the store in person.
Have you ever seen a community come together to save a small business? Slow Burn Bookshop's story is one you need to see to believe — watch the full video report to see the flood damage, hear directly from owner Tonya Pineda, and find out how you can help keep this community bookshop going. We want to hear from you, too — have a story about a local business that deserves attention? Reach out to Eric.Pointer@NewsChannel5.com
This story was reported by Eric Pointer and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Eric Pointer and our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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