Chuck Shin, owner of Chuck’s Hop Shop, a beer store in Greenwood Central’s Seward Park neighborhood, experienced a bizarre Groundhog Day-like experience for small business owners when his storefront was broken into seven times last year.
After spending $4,000 in a government grant and $6,000 of his own money to replace windows and doors, Singh considered putting iron bars on the frames but worried that customers would think the tasting room was unsafe, so he covered the broken windows in his Central District store with plywood and painted them burgundy to match the brick facade.
“I was tired of replacing the same windows,” he says. “I was on the brink of depression over these burglaries.”
The $4,000 grant Singh received was drawn from larger federal funding and paid to the city of Seattle for its Storefront Repair Fund. The program, which the hospitality industry has used more than any other since its launch in 2022, is no longer accepting applications and will run out of funds later this year.
But even if the city extends the program, as local small business owners hope, critics say the city is only using the storefront fund as a Band-Aid to larger systemic problems, like police shortages and other programs that could deter property crime in the first place.
The cost of a single break-in can easily exceed the $2,000 subsidy, and many small business owners have been victimized multiple times: 12 of 25 restaurant and bar owners who spoke to The Seattle Times reported repeated thefts, and many complained about police response.
Meanwhile, business owners are hesitant to report losses to insurers for fear of negatively impacting their insurance policies, often finding themselves bearing the financial burden at a time when many small businesses are barely breaking even.
Here’s why Seattle restaurant and bar owners are caught in the middle.
About the Fund
Seattle’s Economic Development Department runs a Store Repair Fund that has provided 525 small businesses with about $1.5 million to reimburse their storefronts and replace hundreds of broken doors, windows, fences, gates and signs.
The city has provided repair grants of between $2,000 and $4,000 to 525 businesses since October 2022. (Businesses were eligible to apply for two installments of $2,000 grants.) The city excluded national chains from the fund, instead focusing on businesses with three or fewer companies and fewer than 50 full-time employees.
Restaurants and bars make up about half of the applicants for the program, mom-and-pop establishments seeking help with repairs they can’t afford. They’re especially vulnerable to theft because they keep tip containers on hand, keep liquor shelves well-stocked and use tablets and other electronic devices to order food delivery from third parties or make online reservations.
Restaurants and bars account for 47.4% of the 1,154 businesses that applied for Storefront Repair Fund grants, according to city data from October 2022 to July 22, 2024. Retail businesses make up the second-largest category (25.9%), followed by hair salons and other personal services (11.4%).
Seattle restaurants and bars are spending big bucks to renovate their establishments
Local businesses have submitted more than 1,100 applications for funds to compensate for damages to their stores that have been drawn from federal funds disbursed by the city of Seattle since 2022. Nearly half of the applicants are from the food and beverage industry.
The city is using federal funding from the coronavirus relief effort to pay for the repairs, but it’s not renewable. As of July 26, OED was not accepting applications, and administrators will distribute the remaining $200,000 to businesses that have already applied. An OED spokesperson said the agency hopes to continue the program next year, but the funding hasn’t been secured yet.
“We established the Storefront Repair Fund to assist small businesses that have suffered break-ins or other property damage, and it has served that purpose,” OED Director Markham McIntyre said in a statement to The Seattle Times. “Overall, the program has been successful in providing some economic relief to small businesses, allowing them to focus on supporting their employees and serving the public.”
Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office referred all questions about the program to the OED.
“It was time to go home.”
Charlie Anse, president of the Seattle Restaurant Alliance advocacy group, said eliminating the storefront restoration fund would be a big blow to many family-owned restaurants already struggling with rising labor and food costs.
“When you look at the number of storefronts that are still boarded up or damaged, the need for this program becomes clear,” he said.
But many of the two dozen grant recipient restaurateurs interviewed by The Times said the fund is a helpful but insufficient solution.
First, the fund will only cover damages to stores, and the amount will be capped at $4,000 in two installments. Anything above that amount won’t be covered by the grant, and after the second City Store Grant, business owners are on their own.
Many restaurants and bars said they were hit multiple times.
That describes Chris Cvetkovich, co-owner of the world-famous Capitol Hill restaurant Nue, who has twice received funding to repair his establishment but has seen further damage and is calling on police to do more to prevent property crime.
He received two grants from the city totaling $4,000 that came in handy in 2022 after someone broke into the restaurant’s front door and stole its safe, and last year, someone threw a rock through the restaurant’s $5,000 plate-glass window.
But a third grant application was denied after thieves broke the two deadbolt locks on Nue’s front doors, stole all of the waiter tablets, and vandalized the store, causing approximately $6,000 in damages.
The city’s total numbers of thefts and break-ins spiked in 2020 but have declined through 2023, and data for the first six months of 2024 shows they will decline again this year, according to police data. Still, thefts in that six-month period are 15% higher than they were in January-June 2019, according to police data.
Some business owners say they don’t always report break-ins because police response is slow or nonexistent.
Cvetkovich said he reported all incidents to police, but “no one has ever come here to check the damage or anything like that.” Nue’s owners would like to see an extension to the store repair fund, but they also want the city to put more money into preventing property crimes in the first place.
“Are they just going to throw money around and say, ‘Here we go, we’ll give you $2,000,’ and then walk away?”
Seattle Police said officers will respond to calls of break-ins and related property damage if the business owner requests a visit, but police acknowledged that due to police staffing shortages, those calls may not get the same response as “active” cases. As for “open” cases, “we will be there, but it just takes longer,” said Officer Brian Pritchard, a Seattle Police spokesman. “We don’t have the resources we used to have.”
Still, he urged business owners and others to report incidents. “I don’t want people to think, ‘I’m not going to call the police because they’re not coming,'” Pritchard said. “If you need to, call them.”
With the store repair fund potentially ending, restaurant and other small business owners are faced with the complicated prospect of dealing with damage from break-ins.
In the hospitality industry, Anse said, bars and restaurants often don’t file property damage claims with insurance companies because they fear reporting them will lead to higher premiums or the cancellation of their insurance. So many small businesses rely on city subsidies, pay for property damage out of pocket or make do rather than risk losing their insurance.
Some, like Shin, are boarding up their windows. Others are calling the police repeatedly. Some are doing both. Many are losing faith.
Miki Sodos, co-owner of Bang Bang Kitchen in Othello, Southend, has also used up her Shop Repair Fund grant but now has to pay further damages.
She spent $6,000 out of her own pocket to repair the damage from five break-ins, but that still didn’t cover all the damage. Now she can’t afford to replace bullet-scarred windows or repair a damaged patio at the peak of the summer outdoor dining season.
“The average cost of repairing a door is between $1,500 and $2,500,” Sodos said. “This is a huge blow to small businesses. For many small cafes and restaurants, this could be their entire day’s sales.”
Sodos would like to see the storefront program continue — mom-and-population businesses in burglary-ridden areas can’t afford to keep replacing windows and doors — and he also wants police to do more to stop such crimes in the first place.
Doing business in Seattle during the pandemic has been a nightmare, say Nick and KV Bui. After eight break-ins at their Dong Thap noodle cafe in the Chinatown-International District’s Little Saigon, the couple moved their pho shop 12 miles south to Tukwila last year.
They also received a $4,000 store grant, and the couple estimate they’ve spent an additional $20,000 on repairs.
In November 2021, the couple’s insurance company served notice that it would not renew their policy because the Seattle restaurant had an “adverse loss history” and was deemed high risk.
Still, the couple stayed in Little Saigon, wanting to be part of the Vietnamese community. But even that had its limits: Just a few weeks after they spent $2,000 to repair their window, thieves smashed the same window. A few days later, their car was vandalized.
“I was emotionally drained,” KV Bui said. “I cried many nights. I had no energy. It was time to go.”
One business that has survived despite multiple break-ins is the Metier Brewing tasting room in the Central District.
Rodney Hines, co-founder of one of the few Black-owned breweries in the country, said his Cherry Street tasting room was broken into three times within five months, causing a total of $6,000 in damages, two-thirds of which was covered by a Storefront Repair Fund grant.
Hines had to sell loads of beer to make up the remaining $2,000. He knows the perpetrators were likely desperate people and wonders how society can help them. But as a small business owner, he can’t help feeling powerless.
“I was just angry. I felt so hurt,” he said. “I’m just trying to get over it.”
Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com, Facebook: facebook.com/tanvinh, Instagram: @tanvinhseattle.
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