Brazen gunmen stormed a San Francisco doughnut shop early Monday and demanded cash from employees before making off with an ATM, police and bakery staff told The Standard.
Police are now investigating the armed robbery at Happy Donuts at 24th and Church streets in San Francisco’s Noe Valley.
Happy Donuts store manager Ratha Vann told The Standard she witnessed the robbery Monday morning.
“Two guys, each with a gun, came in,” Vann said. “They stole all the money. My baker, they took the money from his pockets.”
Vann said the thieves got away with around $1,500 in cash, including $80 from the baker’s pockets. She described the robbers’ firearms as a long gun and a short gun.
Police said two armed men entered the business around 5:38 a.m. and demanded money from employees. The employees complied, and the suspects fled with an undetermined amount of cash and an ATM.
Surveillance footage from inside Happy Donuts seen by The Standard shows two figures clad in black clothing making their way through the store and going behind the counter to confront staff.
No arrests have been made. Authorities have not released additional details about the business or the suspects.
ATM Theft Concerns
On Monday, a nearby business owner who sat with Vann inside Happy Donuts said she might remove her store’s ATM, believing it makes her store vulnerable.
“This is an emergency,” said the other proprietor, who asked to withhold her name for safety reasons. “The mayor and the governor don’t care about the community. How can you keep a community going? It’s becoming an unsafe place to work. We’re not making millions. It’s an expensive city, and you have crime on top of that? It’s really sad. How do you pay your bills when you have these expenses?”
On Sept. 20, a liquor store on the corner of Haight and Divasadero streets in the Lower Haight neighborhood had its ATM stolen in a burglary at around 1 a.m., police told The Standard.
The business owner told police several items were also stolen in the burglary and the suspects fled before officers arrived.
San Francisco Police Department did not respond to questions about a possible rise in ATM thefts when asked on Sept. 21.
On Sept. 15, a San Francisco CVS store entrance was smashed by a vehicle during an attempted robbery that damaged an ATM.
There were reported 16 robberies in Noe Valley in the 12 months before Sept. 30, 2023, compared with 13 during the same time period ending in September 2022, according to police incident data analyzed by The Standard. There were five reported robberies in the same period ending in 2019.
Citywide, the number of reported robberies has dropped since pre-pandemic 2019, from 34 to 31 incidents per 10,000 residents.