By Arathy Somasekhar

HOUSTON, July 16 (Reuters) - Restaurants in Houston and

nearby regions on Monday filed a class action lawsuit,

collectively seeking over $100 million, against U.S. power

producer CenterPoint Energy Inc ( CNP ) for lack of power

following Hurricane Beryl.

About 2.3 million homes and businesses of CenterPoint's

customers lost power last week after Hurricane Beryl ripped out

trees and knocked down electricity infrastructure. About 130,000

continued to remain without power on Tuesday, eight days after

the hurricane.

The extent of the outages and the long restoration time

periods frustrated Texans, who questioned CenterPoint's

preparedness to tackle damages from the storm. CenterPoint is

the state's largest power provider.

The restaurants include Trattoria Sofia, B.B. Lemon, The

Annie Cafe & Bar and Killen's, according to the class action

petition.

Tony Buzbee, a lawyer who ran for Houston city council last

year, said in an Instagram post the case makes claims for

negligence and gross negligence for "CenterPoint's repeated

failure to do what any reasonable and competent electricity

provider would do and should do."

The case alleges that CenterPoint has failed for years to

invest in infrastructure, to inspect, maintain and upgrade

equipment and to train personnel.

It also alleges that the utility has failed to have a

competent storm plan in place and failed to adequately respond

to the storm once it impacted the area, Buzbee said.

CenterPoint said it remains focused on restoration efforts,

adding that the company does not comment on potential

litigation.