A popular coffee shop on India Street in Portland was burglarized early Saturday morning.
“Someone did break in,” said Coffee By Design owner Mary Allen Lindemann. “They threw a brick and shattered the door and got in and grabbed some stuff.”
Lindemann was quick to add that she was fortunate to have been alerted early of the break-in and was able to find someone to board up the side entrance. The coffee shop opened at its regular 7 a.m.
“It was a miracle. I found a door guy who could come right away,” she said. “We were up and going on time … It was lucky no one was in there, and no one got hurt.”
While there is no side entrance now, the front entrance is intact, she said.
The burglary happened sometime after midnight. When the shop closed at the end of Friday, her team removed cash in the drawer. The drawer was stolen “but there was not much there.”
When Lindemann and other workers arrived Saturday, “there was glass everywhere.”
“My team and partner had to sweep a lot of glass,” she said. “They damaged some of the computer equipment.”
Lindemann said replacing the door will be expensive but she considers herself lucky for finding someone to board up the door and for the newspaper carrier who reported the damage to police around 4 a.m.
“I want to thank the newspaper carrier,” she said, adding she was quickly notified by the Portland Police Department, which secured the scene hours before the shop was scheduled to open.
Portland Police Lt. Robert Doherty said the call came in just before 4 a.m. and that burglary at a closed business is a Class C crime.
Anyone with information about the burglary is asked to call police at 874-8575.
There are two Coffee By Design shops, one on India Street and another on Diamond Street.
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