“It’s frustrating. It’s delayed our opening and we’ve had to spend a lot of time cleaning up the mess,” Shani Knight said.
ST. LOUIS — Multiple businesses were targeted in a series of robberies in South St. Louis Friday morning.
According to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the businesses that were attacked included Poke One at 3101 South Grand Boulevard, Gotham and Eggs at 3139 South Grand Boulevard and Mokabe’s Coffeehouse at 3606 Arsenal Street.
Surveillance cameras at Gotham & Eggs captured robbers entering the restaurant just after 2 a.m. The robbers, wearing black hoodies and masks, searched the store and attempted to steal a safe that was bolted to the floor.
“They basically broke our back window. I don’t know what they used to get inside our store. I’m frustrated. It’s caused us to have to open late and spend a lot of time cleaning up the mess,” Shani Knight said.
Knight and her husband opened Gotham & Eggs less than a year ago, and their restaurant was robbed in September.
“Police have arrested a man in connection with this incident and they told me they caught one of the men from the break-in this morning and he had a gun,” Knight said. “It’s going to cost between $800 and $900 to replace the glass windows. It’s just not worth it for young people to continue breaking into these businesses.”
Steven Chiu, whose family owns PokeOne, believes the same robbers smashed the store’s front glass door, ripped out the cables to the till and stole money.
“We are certain that the same men seen in the CCTV footage and photographs are the ones responsible for all three store break-ins. We are very grateful that no one was hurt,” he said.
Poke One opened less than three months ago.
“It’s frustrating, but it happens. My father now wants to buy some kind of iron blind gate to protect the glass door at the front of the house,” Qiu added.
As of Friday, police had not released any further details about the robbery.
