Check it out

Three days after Hurricane Irma blew through the Tampa Bay area, many national restaurant chain locations remained closed.

Tampa-based Checkers & Rally's Inc., however, had five locations staffed and serving hot food on the afternoon of Monday — just a day after the full brunt of Irma's fury.

Terri Snyder, Checkers & Rally's Inc. chief marketing officer and senior vice president, says the decision reaped immediate rewards, with the restaurants seeing sales increases ranging from 40% to 100%. But more importantly, she adds, it resulted in hot food and beverages served to shell-shocked residents without power, and it got hourly workers — many of whom survive on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis — back on the clock and earning money.