Vandals recently broke 10 windows at Hellenic, a Greek restaurant in Coral Springs, using what police believe was a smoke bomb.
The community response was swift, covering the roughly $11,000 repair cost and packing the restaurant in the days that followed.
FULL STORY: ‘It’s a village.’ Hellenic chef discusses community love after window vandalism
Here are key takeaways:
- Surveillance footage from a neighboring business showed a vehicle arriving before smoke filled the area at 6:02 a.m. on March 21. Chef Nikol Zarbalas arrived about 90 minutes later to set up for a baby shower breakfast and found broken glass and debris everywhere.
- Police believe the culprits tried and failed to throw a smoke bomb inside the restaurant after breaking the first window. A Coral Springs Police Department detective is working to collect all camera footage.
- The Red Meat Lovers Club and its members covered the full cost of the window repairs — estimated at $11,000 because the glass panes were decades old. Zarbalas asked a friend to pause a GoFundMe since the restaurant no longer needed the money and said she would put any extra funds back into the community..
- A glass company brought plexiglass from another job site as a temporary fix the same day, and Hellenic on Atlantic Boulevard was operating at capacity by that evening.
- People kept showing up with support. One man walked in, handed Zarbalas cash and said, “Don’t give up.” A midweek dinner rush looked like a weekend, the chef said.
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