- Repeated power cuts have affected neighborhoods across Heraklion and surrounding areas.
- Some residents reported outages lasting more than 24 hours, including one case reaching 54 hours.
- Restaurants and cafés faced spoiled ingredients, disrupted POS and delivery systems, canceled reservations, and lost revenue.
- The hospitality sector says the outages are more than an inconvenience during the tourist season.
Restaurants, cafés, and other hospitality businesses across the Heraklion area are now counting the cost of repeated, prolonged electricity outages during the tourist season. The disruption has affected not only normal operations but also refrigeration, payment systems, delivery orders, equipment and food supplies.
And some residents have had to wait far longer than anyone would reasonably expect from a routine outage.
Reports from the past week include residents remaining without electricity for around 35 hours in the area of Mikri Papanastasiou, while another group near Drakouliares, close to Malades, reported more than 54 hours without electricity and complained about the lack of information on restoration.
That’s not exactly the kind of Crete experience anyone has booked.
A Restaurant Cannot Run on Good Intentions
Maria Antonakaki, president of the Heraklion Association of Catering and Entertainment Businesses, told Cretalive that even a several-hour outage can effectively mean a lost working day for a business.
The problems are practical and immediate.
Without electricity, kitchen equipment and other machinery stop. Delivery and ordering systems can be disrupted. POS terminals may not function. And then there is the refrigerator.
For hospitality businesses, refrigeration is not a luxury. It holds a significant portion of the day’s investment.
When an outage lasts for hours or is repeatedly interrupted and restored, perishable ingredients can be put at risk, potentially turning a busy September trading day into a very expensive cleanup operation.
54 Hours Without Electricity, and Still Waiting for Answers
The problem has also raised concerns beyond individual businesses.
During the week’s disruptions, outages were reported across numerous parts of the Heraklion regional unit, with residents describing long periods without electricity and, in some cases, uncertainty over when service would return.
Earlier reports recorded problems from Gazi toward Gournes, including Heraklion neighborhoods and parts of Hersonissos. There were also reports of repeated voltage fluctuations.
In another incident, residents on Erasmou Street reported more than 12 hours without electricity, while surrounding areas including Kaminia, Kokkini Hani and Gouves also experienced electricity problems.
The disruptions were associated with problems affecting the electricity network after the first September rains, with DEDDIE crews working to restore supply in affected areas.
In some places, the consequences went beyond electricity itself. A power outage in parts of the Municipality of Archanes-Asterousia also affected water supply because the electricity problems disrupted water infrastructure.
For Tourism, Reliability Is Part of the Product
Crete’s September tourism season is still operating at full speed. Restaurants, cafés and tourist businesses are relying on those final busy weeks to generate revenue before the season winds down.
A restaurant that cannot process card payments, run its kitchen, keep ingredients properly refrigerated, or accept delivery orders cannot simply tell its customers the electricity company is having a difficult Wednesday.
Tourists don’t necessarily know who is responsible for the outage. They experience the result.
And for a small independent business, a single lost day can be much harder to absorb than it is for a large hotel or chain operation.
The Heraklion hospitality association has therefore emphasized that an outage is not merely an inconvenience for the sector. It can mean destroyed raw materials, canceled reservations and lost turnover precisely when businesses are still serving the tourist market.
