A switch in a power box on the corner of Dungarvaon and Brownston Sts blew about 5.30am.
Although many of the affected customers were reconnected by 11.30am, some, including the Otago Daily Times’ office in Wānaka, were off until 2pm.
There were 38 customers still waiting to be reconnected at 3.30pm, but Aurora Energy said all power had been restored by 3.40pm.
Some further outages could be expected today and tomorrow as work continued to fix the fault, an Aurora Energy spokeswoman said yesterday.
An empty coffee pot or a scone was all Coffee Shack staff Dylan Hyman and Rebecca Young could offer customers keen for their usual early morning coffee.
Mr Hyman said he noticed something was not right when he drove through town on his way to work after 6am.
"Everything was dark and nothing was operating."
Customers began queuing at 7am as normal, but he had to turn them away.
"I would say we could get 50 orders before 9.30am on average. Some days are busier than others,'' he said.
The neighbouring business, Charlie Brown — a crepe caravan — also had to turn people away, mainly because many did not have cash.
Crepes could still be made on the gas-heated hotplate but the eftpos machine was down.
Federal Diner on Dunmore St also experienced some disruption at breakfast time but was connected by 9.30am.
Some retail stores on Helwick St were also reconnected early.
The Aurora Energy spokeswoman explained a ground mount switch was an isolation mechanism designed to minimise the number of customers affected if the power went out.
Aurora’s fault response crew called in extra resources and five generators to power customers progressively through the day.
"Another short outage may be required in the next day or two to restore customers to their usual power once the fault has been repaired," she said.
