Pawtucket Pizza Shop Plundered

The owner says the thieves might be disappointed.

PAWTUCKET, RI (WLNE) – When Mike Brown came in to his shop Saturday morning, he was met with a surprise: the safe normally locked in his office was gone, his back door missing a panel where thieves had broken in. “I’ve been going on here 26 years. I mean, we got broken into once years and years ago, but nothing to this degree,” says Mike Brown, the owner of Olly’s Pizza. “Nothing like having a safe ripped out.”

According to surveillance footage, a total of what is believed to be 5 suspects forced their way through the back door just before 3am Saturday morning taking only the safe with them. While Brown hasn’t said how much was inside, he does believe that thieves will be “disappointed”: in today’s world of online ordering and credit/debit payments accepted most everywhere, a safe full of cash in most restaurants is becoming unusual. “There’s some deposit money, but it’s not like it was in the old days,” he explains. “If there was, I believe 5 of them, when they split it all up, I don’t think it’s gonna be worth their time.”

With surveillance pictures already circulating on social media and the Pawtucket Police Facebook page, Brown says he thinks the thieves will be identified quickly-and that he may even already know who they are. “It looks like an inside job, a past employee. There’s a couple that didn’t come in.”

When ABC6 news cameras went inside the shop today, repairs to the back door had already been made with a new, more industrial safe waiting to be installed and added security features installed. “Chances of this happening again are pretty slim.”

This is a developing story. Stay with ABC6 News for more details.