The outage, which occurred at 8.47am, was blamed on a fault in an underground cable supplying a transformer in Hagart Alexander Dr, an Aurora spokesman said.
The outage affected more than 1000 customers in Mosgiel, Wingatui, Kinmont, East Taieri, North Taieri and Brighton, and continued until power was finally restored - with the help of mobile generators - about 3.30pm, the spokesman said.
Eat 'n' Run owner and manager Kate Godkin said power cut out intermittently from 9am in her Gladstone Rd South store.
She could not open the shop till and ``it's a real nuisance because I can't cook lunch'', she said when the Otago Daily Times visited midmorning.
Industry Food Bar manager Mon Intharasri said her nearby business was similarly inconvenienced.
``We can't make any more pies,'' she said.
``My Monday is very busy. A lot of customers come on a Monday.''
She resorted to an alternative way of keeping trade going after her eftpos machine stopped working and she could not open the till.
``They [customers] have to put their name and number down ... I just have to trust them to come back.''
The mobile generators used to restore power would remain in place until the original fault was fixed, Aurora said on its website.
Another short outage was expected when the generators were removed.
The company did not respond to a further request for comment yesterday.
- Jack Conroy
