Burglary closes Café Coco for weekend, owner ‘heartbroken’ from hospital

The Coco Café in downtown Spokane will be closed for the weekend following a Friday morning burglary.

An employee called police Friday morning because a woman was in the café when she showed up to open shop. The woman allegedly stole around $85 from the cash register and multiple pastries, police spokeswoman Tricia Leming said. The woman returned the money before leaving the café and there were no damages to the property, she said.

Owner Celeste Shaw said via text that she “couldn’t believe it” when she got the same call about the theft. A beloved figure in the area for her community work and business presence, Shaw was in the hospital at the time of the news, preparing for a plasma exchange. It was “no question, an emotional morning.”

On social media, she wrote that she had had a night of pain and fever before getting the news.

“Sometimes you don’t think it can be harder, or something else could happen when you’re already in the midst of trying to get through,” the post reads. “I feel so ill and now I am heartbroken.”

In 2024, Shaw sold her Latah Valley restaurant “Chaps Diner and Bakery” to focus on her health – a journey she has shared periodically on social media.

“The hardest part for me – not being able to support my team,” she wrote. “I told my team to take a paid weekend off – rest and not be stressed.”

Building owner Dan Spalding said there was no sign of forced entry into the café and the perpetrator appeared, from security footage, to be a local unhoused person embarking on a “crime of opportunity.” Either the door was mistakenly left unlocked or the person hid inside overnight, Spalding believes. Leming said it is unclear how the woman got inside.

The woman, who has been the subject of prior suspicious person and trespassing calls, will be arrested on suspicion of burglary once located by police, Leming said.

Neighboring salon “dept. Z” owner Zoe Boysen said burglaries are uncommon in the strip of small businesses along Main Avenue. She said she is “sending love and light” to Shaw.

Spalding called the incident a “cautionary tale” for local businesses to lock up before heading home for the day.