Australia Weather News

Restaurants and businesses across South Australia are counting the costs after losing thousands from the statewide blackout overnight.

Thousands of eateries were forced to close their doors, turning away customers, while others served under candlelight.

Stock was also lost, with refrigerators unable to be used.

La Trattoria restaurant in Adelaide's city centre managed to open but still lost thousands of dollars.

"We had to shut down our delivery section completely because all the pizza ovens work on electricity but we did manage to cook a little bit," manager Billy Duff said.

"We served a few customers by still losing a little bit — we lost about $5,000."

Mr Duff said chefs worked with head torches and patrons were served under candlelight.

"We cooked by candlelight and by torch and customers were dining by candlelight as well so, all in all, it was quite a romantic time," he said.

"Very frustrating because we didn't know what time the power was going to come back on so that was a major frustration.

"Not knowing what to do with the staff was also a major frustration."

Mr Duff said it was too early to say how much money had been lost through stock.

"We probably have lost some stock because it's not ideal to have stock in a refrigerator that's not working but we haven't quite gained the extent of that just yet," he said.

Waitress, Daniella Veitch, said it was an unusual night and despite the challenges, staff kept going.

"It was kind of hectic working under the conditions we had to work in," she said.

"The chefs had the head torches on ... I felt for them last night but they did a really good job, we got all the orders out."