Tortoise Club crawls back after water damage

6-Feb-13 – Tortoise Club was back in business on Wednesday after a water pipe burst over the weekend. With the temperature in Chicago as low as ten degrees, the water in the pipe froze, causing the pipe to fail. Typically, this will happen somewhere between an ice blockage in the pipe and a closed faucet at the other end.

According to a publicist for Tortoise Club, which opened last November, there was “minor water damage in the lounge” but the upscale restaurant on the east side of Marina City was able to keep its main dining room and private “Red Room” open on Monday. On Tuesday, however, the restaurant was completely closed for repairs.

An announcement on the restaurant’s Facebook page said on Wednesday they would open for lunch at 11:30 a.m. and be back to their “regular hours moving forward.”

On January 16, 2008, during bitter cold temperatures that dropped to as low as minus 18 degrees, a water pipe – part of a sprinkler system on the west side of Marina City – burst, damaging wood floors and closing Amano Italian Trattoria for six weeks. Elsewhere in the complex, another sprinkler pipe burst, causing an estimated $20,000 damage.