Around 3 o’clock in the afternoon last Saturday, UniverSOUL Cafe owner Tonya Mack drove to her business to pick up items for Turnip the Beat, a family food festival in the Del Paso Heights area.
When she arrived on July 12, shattered glass lay on the ground from broken windows, and what was once a space that served more than a million meals to Del Paso Heights residents began to resemble a “junkyard,” said Mack.
“Just demolished,” Mack said. “The electrical panels were all taken down. All of our offices that were locked had all been broken into, and it just looked like everything was missing and turned upside down. It’s devastating and it has crippled us.”
UniverSOUL Cafe was founded by Mack in 2019 and turned food surplus from local hotels and restaurants into meals for families in need across the Sacramento area. The business also brings meals to seniors, those who are homeless and those living in nontraditional housing communities…