Twice in four months: Sam's Italian Kitchen burglarized again

A South Bend Italian restaurant has to turn away customers to try and get things back in order after being targeted twice just months apart.

Just hours after Christmas Day, someone forced their way inside and started a fire and that comes after a Labor Day burglary.

Owner Sam Macri is passionate about his Italian cooking but he says these past four months have but a major damper on business, especially during this busy holiday season.

It’s supposed to be the busiest week of the year for Sam’s Italian kitchen, but instead of serving pizza and lasagna, Macri showed ABC 57 what happened to his restaurant Monday morning.

According to Marci, someone entered the business through a back door, before setting Christmas decorations and boxes of beer and wine on fire.

Fortunately, sprinklers were able to limit the structural damage, but Marci says 2 to 4 inches of water flooded his floors and damaged dozens of products and paperwork.

“I have people over here cleaning up carpet, chair, tables, walls, and I’m trying to open back up because this week really busiest week of year New Year ’s Eve and everything else unfortunately I lost the whole week,” said Macri.

Macri says he’s optimistic the restaurant will be back in business on Thursday, and through the New Year’s weekend.