Midtown Atlanta pub destroyed in water main break reopens

ATLANTA - Almost two months after two devastating water main breaks that grabbed national headlines, a popular Midtown Atlanta bar and restaurant reopened its doors to customers. 

"During the water crisis, the Eleventh Street Pub was the hardest hit, with thousands of gallons of water cascading into the business. 

"It had to have been thousands and thousands of gallons, probably in excess of 100,000 gallons of water," owner Mike Taylor told FOX 5 in early June. 

For 20 hours, thousands of gallons of water spewed out, uprooting a boulder and several other rocks and decimating the front window in the process. 

"It just destroyed the place," Taylor concluded. 

It has been 55 days since the incident. New floors and walls are up, and the wings are flying again. 

"We are very, very happy to be reopened. Our staff is very happy, and it is starting to feel like everything is getting back to normal," Taylor said on Monday with a smile. 

Two feet of water flooded the sports bar, resulting in the rotting of the floors and walls in the pub and its basement kitchen. 

"We just took a direct hit. With the windows breaking, and the water coming inside, and flooding the place, it just took an awful long time to have the water mitigation, and get all of the moisture out, and make sure there was no mold," Taylor explained. 

Taylor says he lost thousands of dollars. The water main break came on the heels of the COVID shut down in 2020. 

"It was very similar to COVID as we did not know when our timetable was for reopening. It was definitely stressful, but we made it through COVID, we made it through this," the owner said. 

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Taylor says most of his 16 employees did come back. 

His hope now is that the customers will return to enjoy a 10-wing special for an amazing price.