Burst pipe floods Old Town Cellars

Water damage at Old Town Cellars. Photo: Dan Cambell, Hunter Gatherer

PARK CITY, Utah — A burst pipe has caused a massive flood in the Old Town Cellars building on Main Street, with water levels reportedly well over 18 inches deep in the main seating area.

According to Stephen Mackay, co-founder of Old Town Cellars, a city-owned pipe burst at approximately 2 a.m. on April 5 filling the business’s fire riser room in the basement with water.

“Our entire space was filled with muddy silt and water that evening, and we’re in the process of cleaning up,” Mackay said. “But yeah, it’s just an absolute nightmare.”

Mackay does not believe that the burst pipe had anything to do with Utah’s high snowpack levels or low temperatures, but rather the aging infrastructure on Park City’s Main Street. Like many other Main Street buildings, the Old Town Cellars building has a 19th century mining-era foundation.

“It’s well known that us being on a mind tailing situation in this town, that the minerals and deposits in the soil are so corrosive to certain metals,” Mackay said. It’s why we keep dealing with this but we don’t know what the city’s response is… I think that the city is ultimately, rather than doing this [addressing infrastructure issues] and getting federal and state funding all at once and coming up with a real game plan, they’re just playing Whack-a-Mole. And it’s just like, what business is gonna be so negatively impacted next that they go out of business?”

The storefront will remain closed until further notice as crews work to clean up what Mackay said is catastrophic internal damage to the space.

“Right now, we’re just taking a giant bite out of the elephant every hour and just trying to solve it,” Mackay said. “A lot of communications obviously with insurance lawyers, the city trying to talk to parking enforcement about having these contractors out here.”

For those looking to support Old Town Cellars in the meantime, Mackay has simply asked that residents continue to purchase the company’s wines where possible.

“If you find yourself at the DBS stores and you see a bottle of Townie Rose, that would really help us climb out of this hole and continue down our path of the long term goal of being a part of this community,” Mackay said.