The young couple from Texas had reservations at the Coyote Cafe, but they were dining on pepperoni pizza and beer by candlelight at the Atomic Grill on Friday night as snow fell on the dark Santa Fe streets outside.

The Coyote Cafe was closed, like many other downtown eateries, after a power outage about 7:20 p.m. hit a wide area ranging from Tesuque through downtown and south to Seton Village Road. But at the Atomic Grill, the wood-burning pizza oven left Peyton Booth and Chris Mechura of Dallas feeling pleasantly surprised by the outage.

“When I first got here, I said, ‘I’ve got cash. You’ve got beer. Can we work something out?’ ” Booth said. “It’s perfect. It’s so sweet. This was a true candlelight dinner.”

Lights in downtown Santa Fe began flickering at about 7 p.m. By 7:17 p.m., the power was off for about 10,000 customers, according to Jeff Buell, Public Service Company of New Mexico spokesman. By 8:30 p.m., most power to downtown had been restored, Buell said, but about 600 customers still were without service. By 9 p.m., all power in Santa Fe was restored, he said.

PNM had not identified the cause of the outage Friday night. Buell said a fire burned through a major transmission line near Old Santa Fe Trail and Interstate 25. But he said he did not know how the fire had started, and reports of either a structure fire or a car crash near the line could not be confirmed.

According to Buell, PNM was marking the boundaries of the outage at Old Pecos Trail on the west, Paseo del Monte off Hyde Park Road in the east, Tesuque Pueblo to the north and County Road 58 to the south. Buell said those were the general boundaries of the outage, but The New Mexican received several reports of power loss outside that area.

The performance of Moby Dick — Rehearsed at the Lensic was canceled Friday, and most downtown businesses were dark. A doorman at the Catamount said the bar would reopen when the power came back on, while at La Fonda, guests were being given glow sticks.

The Santa Fe Fire Department rescued a woman from the elevator at the Sandoval Street parking garage, according to Ted Bolleter, assistant fire chief. He said the department responded to two calls regarding structure fires Friday night, but both were unfounded.

Dennis Barnes, an employee of the Atomic Grill, said Friday’s outage was the third in the past six months in the area of the cafe on Water Street. Employees there have more or less learned to cope with the situation, he said, but the outage still was “annoying,” and many downtown businesses were suffering.

The Atomic still could offer pizza because of its wood-burning oven, he explained to several men who had been told they couldn’t eat at Cafe Pasqual’s at about 8 p.m. “I can make pizza,” he told them, “as long as you don’t object to it being made by candlelight.”

Contact Natalie Storey at 986-3026 or nstorey@sfnewmexican.com.