PORTLAND, Ore. — Last week, thieves stole all the copper and aluminum out of the refrigeration unit outside Food Fight! Grocery, an all-vegan store in Northeast Portland. The owner said it's beyond repair — forcing them to replace it for thousands of dollars.
"They cut the pipe there," said owner Beth Sullivan, pointing out the damage behind her store. "The entire unit's gone. They had started on the freezer as well, but something must have spooked them. So I'm grateful that that didn't happen, but we're also kind of in a rush to get a fence up to protect it."
Sullivan told KGW, in the couple years she's owned Food Fight!, they've dealt with other types of vandalism and break-ins, but it did not occur to her that anyone would go after the equipment behind the store. She filed a police report online.
"I didn't think that there was that much of value, and I don't really think there is much value worth of copper in there — but now we know."
She estimates the cost of replacing the unit and putting in security measures to be around $15,000. Although insurance will eventually cover part of the damage, Sullivan's hoping to raise enough to cover the deductible — and started a GoFundMe page for support.
"For a small business, it's really hard. You know, we're... we're getting by. We're paying the bills and we're paying our employees and that's it. You know, we don't I don't make the paycheck," she explained.
One silver lining to the situation: the loyal customers who jumped at the opportunity to help, after Food Fight! posted about the vandalism on Friday.
"We were able to put the word on social media," Sullivan said. "Like, hey, come buy our cold things while they're still cold and everybody came out in droves on Friday. That was great... that was our largest sale date since we took over ownership of the store. I think we had probably around 150 transactions that day, which is a lot for us."
Sullivan hopes to have back up and running by the end of the week.