Popular Buckhead brunch restaurant Buttermilk Kitchen was burglarized early Tuesday morning as a man broke into the building and stole the cash-filled safe from the office.
Though the restaurant was damaged during the incident, the suspected burglar did not escape unscathed. Security camera footage shared on the restaurant’s social media page shows the man dropping the safe on his foot in the parking lot, causing him to fall and later walk with a visible limp.
The break-in happened around 5 a.m., according to owner Suzanne Vizethan, who posted about the incident on social media. Video footage shows a man wearing a black balaclava-style mask as he walks through the kitchen, peers around the office and later drags the safe through the parking lot.
The man was picked up, along with the safe, by a second man in a black Toyota Camry, Vizethan said on social media. The security cameras could not capture the car’s license plate.
Vizethan offered a special reward for anyone with vital information in the case. “I’m just hoping that someone will share this and come forward and, it’s free chicken biscuits for life whoever does.”
Restaurants, bars and nightclubs tend to be vulnerable to crime because they attract large gatherings of people and tend to accumulate cash, according to the Georgia Restaurant Association. In 2020, FBI statistics ranked restaurants as the seventh-most common type of location to be burglarized and the eighth-most common location for violent crimes, Restaurant Business magazine reported.
Recent history shows how Atlanta restaurants and bars have fallen prey to burglaries and armed robberies, and how securing those businesses can come with serious risks.
Last October, a 59-year-old man was arrested on 14 counts of second-degree burglary, Atlanta police said. Michael Goldberg, the suspect, was accused of burglarizing a variety of restaurants in Buckhead and Midtown, including two locations of Willie’s Mexicana Grill, On the Border, Cafe at Pharr, Toast on Lenox, Kale Me Crazy and Casseroles to Go, among others. Goldberg remains in the Fulton County Jail on $35,000 bond, court records show.
Earlier this year, a Roswell steakhouse lost more than $15,000 worth of meat when it was burglarized. In DeKalb County, a man was charged with attempted burglary after police said he became stuck in a roof vent on top of a pizza restaurant.
Threats to these types of businesses have led many restaurant and bar owners to hire security guards, a dangerous line of work that has resulted in several injuries and deaths over the past year and a half.
Since April 2021, seven security guards have been shot at restaurants and nightclubs in the metro Atlanta area, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Three of those men died, including the horrific case of 51-year-old Anthony Frazier, who was shot in the back of the head seemingly without provocation outside the Cleveland Avenue restaurant where he worked.
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