One of the owners of Fremont's Skillets Cafe is speaking out, claiming someone broke into his store and stole his safe.
The business is located in the 37300 block of Niles Boulevard.
One of the owners, Priscilla Bravo, told NBC Bay Area that she received a call from her manager Thursday morning saying the restaurant had been broken into. When they got here, there was broken glass everywhere.
Bravo posted videos of the aftermath and damage on social media.
“I just started crying. I think at that point you feel very violated, that someone has invaded your safe space, touched everything, moved everything.” she said.
Bravo said he had to quickly get to work cleaning and repairing it. She had a Restaurant Week event scheduled with the city of Fremont, so she had to go to another restaurant, Billy Roy's Burgers, she added.
“It's going to have a big impact on us. We didn't have time to process anything because there was an event, but life goes on and there are bigger problems in this world than what happened to us. But I think tomorrow you're going to realize you have bills to pay,” she said.
Bravo said while the damage would be expensive to repair, the safe was also stolen.
“In fact, they took a whole safe full of money. And they took our cash register and took boxes of checks, blank checks,” she said. “I don't want to say the amount, but it was a lot. It had been in storage for a long time.”
Bravo doesn't know exactly when it happened. But she called police early Thursday morning, she said. Fremont police said they are actively investigating the robbery.
Fremont resident Ricky Blaha is a regular customer at Skillets. He told NBC Bay Area on Thursday that he was shocked by the incident.
“I found Priscilla's Instagram and was literally shocked. I don't know who would do something like that. Skillet'z is such a big part of the community that it's crazy for that to happen. ” he said.
Bravo said nothing like this has ever happened in the 10 years she's been running the restaurant.
“If you leave things out there forever, no one will take them,” she said. “So when this happens, it's like a wake-up call for everyone in Fremont.”
Bravo said she is grateful for the messages she has received. But she won't be doing any fundraising online.
