While most retail stores and restaurants were closed by a daylong power outage caused by yesterday's earthquake, at least a few businesses and their customers managed to make the best of a bad situation.

From Kailua to Kalihi many companies simply shut down. Still, here and there it was business as usual, or at least something like it.

"Everybody has been good and patient and we're doing our best to help them," said Brandi Ranario, an assistant delicatessen manager at the 'Aikahi Safeway, where some shoppers stood in line for up to an hour to buy a few Sunday essentials, including toilet paper, doughnuts and beer.

Although the store lacked power, workers were allowing shoppers in one at a time accompanied by a flashlight-toting employee, who used a notepad to keep track of purchase prices by hand.

"It's the peak of customer service, a personal shopper," said 17-year-old Zach Kalahiki, normally a bagging clerk who was following Kailua resident Steve Rodgers and his son Nicholas through the store as they picked up batteries, Gatorade, Cheerios, granola bars and a box of Cheese-Its.

"Hopefully, we got enough to get us through the day," Rodgers said. He paid $42.18 in cash (without power the store couldn't accept credit cards or checks) and went to the parking lot, where the line of waiting shoppers had grown to more than 100 people by 10 a.m.

A few hours later, at the normally busy triangle of big box retailers on Nimitz Highway, only Home Depot was open, although propane, generators and some batteries were nearly sold out by early afternoon.

"We just needed a few things to go into the self-survival mode," said Joe Belisario, 45, an intern architect from Kona who was visiting Honolulu on business when the earthquake woke them up in their 28th floor Waikiki hotel room.

"The building was swaying back and forth a good 12 inches, like being on a boat," said Belisario, who drew on his engineering background to quickly leave the building, stock up on picnic supplies, head for the Diamond Head lookout and avoid flying home for one more day.

"It's going to be a mess there, so we'll just take a breather and try again in the morning," he said.

While much of the rest of the Nimitz Highway and Dillingham Boulevard commercial quarters were nearly deserted, one entrepreneur took advantage of the situation to satisfy a certain hunger in his customers.

David Tishar, who normally works at the Master of Taste cafe and catering company, set up an impromptu gas grill in the parking lot of the Gentry Pacific Design Center to barbecue hamburgers and quickly drew a crowd of eager buyers.

"If we didn't do something we were going to lose all our food stocks anyway and as a small company we can't afford that," he said. "We'll just keep selling till all the food is gone."

Across the street, workers at the Zippy's restaurant on Nimitz Highway did their best to keep customers happy.

First they dished up all the hot food, including chicken, Portuguese bean soup and chili that had been cooked before the power went off. When that ran out about 10 a.m., they started serving cold ham and turkey sandwiches.

By 12:30 p.m., even that food was gone and the restaurant was closing down for the day, said manager Cesar Carganilla.

"That's all. No more nothing. It's all gone," he said to a continuing stream of customers walking into the restaurant looking for something to eat.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.