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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Vinegar Flats businesses burglarized back to back

Spokane police Officers Tim Ottmar, left, and John O’Brien check in with Celeste Shaw at Chaps Diner and Bakery on Tuesday. A well-wisher in the parking lot asked the officers to take the flowers in to Shaw, whose businesses were burglarized recently. (Dan Pelle)

When she first learned thieves broke into Chaps Diner and Bakery, manager Megan Shaw was shocked.

“It’s emotional. It just feels like such a big hit,” she said.

The bakery burglary early Monday came just days after a break-in at Lucky Detour, a vintage flea market shop in Vinegar Flats. Both businesses are owned by Shaw’s mother-in-law, Celeste Shaw.

In addition to managing Chaps, Megan Shaw shares ownership in Lucky Detour, so news of the second break-in felt “like being kicked while we were down,” she said.

But by Tuesday morning, the initial hurt from the burglary had been dulled by an outpouring of community support.

“A lot of people swung by just to say, ‘Hey, we’re thinking of you’ and grab a pastry,” Shaw said. Flowers and cards found their way through the front doors, and diners filled the place from breakfast until well into the lunch hour.

Chaps opened in 2007 as a coffee shop selling bread and pastries amid eclectic decorations from Celeste Shaw’s family homestead in Montana. She expanded the diner in 2009 to include a full bakery and more seating space; it’s located at 4237 S. Cheney-Spokane Road.

Surveillance footage from the break-in shows three men and one woman entering the restaurant around 2:30 a.m. Monday, Megan Shaw said. The group broke a window and cleaned out the place, taking computers, a point-of-sale system and a locked safe from the back of the restaurant.

At Lucky Detour, burglars broke a window, took jewelry and vandalized the bathroom on Friday morning, but left more valuable things inside the store untouched.

Police spokeswoman Monique Cotton said officers are still investigating both incidents but do not have any reason to believe they are related.

Celeste Shaw opened Lucky Detour last September, and said at the time she loved the small-town feel of the Vinegar Flats neighborhood that’s south of downtown, east of U.S. 195.

Though the incidents have rattled her and other staff, Megan Shaw said the break-ins hadn’t changed her belief that both stores are in safe areas surrounded by caring community members.

“The community, our neighbors have been so supportive to us and shown so much love,” Shaw said. “It means the world to us.”