About 800 Echo Park businesses and residents remained without power Wednesday, Aug. 26, as a five-day outage threatened to disrupt the neighborhood's biggest event of the year.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) has been working to restore two circuits serving Echo Park and Westlake since outages began Saturday, Aug. 22, amid a heat wave. As of Wednesday afternoon, the number of affected customers had dropped from 3,000 to roughly 800, according to The Eastsider LA, which first reported the business impacts.

LADWP spokesperson Ellen Cheng told The Eastsider that crews achieved partial restoration and would continue working through Wednesday evening. Workers have been inspecting underground electrical vaults and lines to isolate the problem.

The outage threatens shop owners' busiest weekend. Echo Park Rising, the free two-day music and arts festival presented by the Echo Park Chamber of Commerce, takes over more than 50 local businesses and venues Saturday and Saturday, Aug. 29–30. It marks the first time since before the pandemic that the festival has operated as an official two-day event, with hundreds of performers expected to participate, according to the LA Daily News.

Kala Maxym, owner of The Chocolate Dispensary on Echo Park Avenue, lost power around 3 a.m. Wednesday. She and her husband hung blackout drapes, rented a generator and air conditioner, and rigged makeshift swamp coolers with fans and ice packs to protect hundreds of chocolate bars and treats.

"We're keeping it at a temperature that will keep the chocolate alive," Maxym told The Eastsider.

The Chocolate Dispensary is a participating venue for Echo Park Rising, with live performances scheduled Saturday. Maxym said the festival weekend includes two of her shop's five busiest days of the year.

Other businesses have already absorbed losses. Stories Books & Cafe on Sunset Boulevard closed Saturday, Aug. 22, its busiest day, after losing lights, air conditioning, registers and phones. Larchmont Bungalow on Alvarado Street discarded spoiled food after losing power for much of Tuesday, Aug. 25.

The damage was significant.

Manager Veronica San Pedro told The Eastsider that employees threw out a full stock of product. After power returned Tuesday evening, they bought only enough replacement inventory to get through the next day.

Ramona restaurant on Sunset Boulevard remained closed after about 36 hours without power as of Wednesday afternoon. Owner Scott Zwiezen, who has operated in the area for 22 years, told The Eastsider he had never experienced an outage like it.

Whether LADWP will fully restore power before the festival begins Saturday has not been confirmed. The utility has not provided a public timeline for complete restoration to the remaining 800 customers.