Buzzbrews. Photography by Kathy Tran.
The kitchen manager at Buzzbrews was the first person to realize the restaurant at the Skillman Live Oak Center had been burglarized.
Based on security camera footage, the theft occurred around 3:15 a.m. April 10, Buzzbrews owner Ernest Belmore said.
A man wearing a ski mask used a crowbar to break the glass and the door, and then he walked around the building, waiting to see if there would be a response, Belmore said. Then the person entered the restaurant, going straight to the office.
The safe was left unlocked, and the person took all of the cash — about $4,000, Belmore said, the earnings from the holiday weekend. Within about two minutes, the person had left the business.
“Of all places, Lakewood, you would not think that this would have happened, but it did,” he said.
After the incident, he reached out to other neighboring businesses to see if they had additional camera footage that could help in the investigation of the Buzzbrews theft. That’s when he learned that other nearby businesses, including Benny’s Bagels, had also been recent targets.
Belmore said he thinks the same person is responsible for the other incidents, where a person broke the glass doors or windows of mom-and-pops in the area and went straight for the cash.
Suzie Sanchez, a manager at Benny’s, said the shop has been vandalized twice this year. The first burglary occurred just before the ice storm, in late January.
Early one morning, someone used two rocks to break the window and climb in. Sanchez said the person struggled with the cash register but was able to steal the cash out of it, about $150. The security cameras weren’t functioning well, so it’s hard to make out the video, she said.
But around 2 a.m. April 9, the store on Skillman Street was broken into again. This time, the cameras were working, and they show that a person broke the window and damaged the register. But Benny’s had stopped leaving money in the register after the first break-in, so nothing was stolen.
Benny’s is planning to keep their counters clear and leave the register open and empty, Sanchez said.
A public information officer for the Dallas Police Department said officers are investigating both the Buzzbrews and the recent Benny’s Bagels incidents, but they have not determined whether the two are related.
At Buzzbrews, Belmore is trying to do whatever he can to stay open and make payroll this week.
“I believe in, A, the brand, B, I love the community and the neighborhood,” Belmore said. “And we need to be there, the local, owner-operated restaurant.”
The pandemic took a toll on Buzzbrews, as it did many other businesses. Belmore said he had to close three stores permanently, and the Deep Ellum location was closed temporarily. A rebrand was supposed to take three or four months at the location, but the store ended up being closed for 13 months.
“I’ve got employees that have been with me for 30 years. I can’t let them down,” Belmore said. “That’s really, aside from the community aspect of it, this being my home community, my highest priority is making sure we don’t close our doors for our employees.”
