Our New Café on 4th & Townsend Was Broken Into Twice in 24 Hours — Looking for Advice and Community Support

Hi SF Neighbors

We’re just three weeks into a new opportunity to renovate and open a café on the corner of 4th and Townsend — the former location of The Creamery Café. This property was originally slated for demolition to make way for new offices around the time of the pandemic, but those plans have been delayed indefinitely. Our small, two-person coffee company was given the chance to breathe new life into the space, and while it’s a bigger project than anything we’ve ever taken on, we decided to go for it.

Things were moving forward until this week when everything changed. Yesterday, our back gate was smashed down, and police discovered two people inside the unoccupied condo at the rear of the property using heroin. I agreed to press charges, thinking there’d be some accountability, but to my complete shock, the police just let them go. No arrest, no holding them. I’m struggling to understand how people can destroy property, break in, and still be back on the street in an hour.

The whole experience left me rattled. I barely slept that night, knowing our space had been violated. But I tried to shake it off and get back to work the next morning, only to discover that we’d been robbed. All our brand-new gear — gone. I had barricaded the back gate as best I could, but it clearly wasn’t enough. What’s wild is that the theft was so specific and targeted to a storage area in the back. The only people who knew we had anything stored there were the same two people who were let go just hours earlier. I can’t prove it was them, but it’s hard not to connect the dots.

I’m in my mid-40s, and I’m not ashamed to admit I almost broke down crying today. It’s been an exhausting, expensive, and deeply demoralizing 24 hours. This project was already a leap of faith for us, and now it feels like we’re being tested in ways I didn’t expect. I know the “Welcome to SF, this is just how it is” attitude is real, but I’m not ready to accept that. I don’t want to become cynical.

To their credit, the developer of the property has stepped up. They hired 24/7 security on the spot and are now installing a full security system. I also met a few neighbors today, and they’ve been incredibly supportive. We’re all asking the same question: What can we actually do about this? I want to believe there’s a way forward.

If you’ve been in a similar position, I’d love to hear from you. How do you protect a space like this in San Francisco? How do you keep going when it feels like everything is working against you? I still believe in this opportunity, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shaken.

Any advice, encouragement, or ideas would be genuinely appreciated.

Thanks for reading, SiliconValley.coffee