Many local small business took a financial hit as the payment service Square suffered a power outage. Those businesses were forced to turn down customers.

The Square website states their service helps millions of sellers run their business from secure credit card processing to point-of-sale solutions.

Square services are now back up and running, the issues started Thursday afternoon.

The manager of Brew Ha Ha on West 12th Street said this basically grinds business to a halt.

“It’s disappointing on a lot of levels, because our customers come in, and they can’t use their card, and they can’t pay at all, and we can’t do business. I have talked to the business here that just closed down when they were using Square,” said Jesse Cammarata, Brew Ha Ha manger.

He added it’s frustrating for the customers and the staff.

“Because they get frustrated, they don’t know what to do, and if there is no easy fix, then we are just kind of stuck telling people that we can’t help them,” Cammarata said.

Herb & Honey Bakery also uses Square and said they saw a decrease in pre-order sales.

“Usually, week-to-week, anywhere between a quarter to 40 percent of what we do is already pre-ordered. So, I definitely saw a dip in that and then a dip in sales this week too,” said Jessica Schultz, Herb & Honey Bakery.

Also, technology has its perks.

“Once you rely on it for so many aspects of your business, if one goes down, the whole thing goes down. It’s a little frustrating, especially after COVID and the pandemic, as a business owner you just kind of learn to roll with it and shrug it off, explain to your customers what is happening,” Schultz went on to say.

Earlier Thursday, Square confirmed that Square’s payments processing services have been restored.