Burglar who made off with donation jars’ cash won’t dampen spirit of bagel shop owners — or their family of customers

It’s stunned them almost as much as the burglary itself.

For John and Joanne Leibold, proprietors of the Bean and Bagel Cafe in Calverton, the outpouring of community support since someone broke into their shop last week has been as much of an eye-opener as the burglary, in which someone made off with cash — including money in half a dozen donation jars — and a tray of Christmas cookies.

“People in the community have just been amazing,” Joanne Leibold said. Offers of money and help to clean up the mess left behind by burglars who ransacked the store immediately began flowing in as word of the burglary spread, she said. “People offered to come in and bus tables or serve coffee,” she said.

For example, a neighboring business owner’s son showed up yesterday unannounced and decorated the outside of their building for Christmas. “We were going to decorate this weekend, but that plan was derailed by the burglary,” Leibold said.

When outraged customers learned the thief took the money from five or six donation jars on the stores’ countertop, they dug into their pockets and began refilling them.

“We’ve always had a policy of no tips,” Leibold said. “We pay our help well and we’ve always asked appreciative customers to put their tips in the donation jars instead. We want to try to help others in need.”

The store collects donations for varied causes, from Kent Animal Shelter to local families enduring great personal hardship: the family of a Riverhead High School student suffering with leukemia, the family of a young Shirley boy with a very rare disease that’s left him in constant pain and another local family caring for a young man who suffered a serious  brain injury in a car accident.

“For these families, those donations are their grocery money,” Leibold said. “That little boy, he’s only about 8, came in here this summer to thank me for helping his family,” she said.

“It made me cry to think that someone could do a thing like this,” Leibold said of the donation jar thefts.

The break-in was discovered at around 2 in the morning Friday by a deliveryman.

When their phone rang at that ungodly hour, jarring her awake, Leibold’s first thought was, “Oh my God, who died? Because that’s what you automatically think,” she said.

The deliveryman found the west side door “smashed,” according to Riverhead Town Police. Leibold said someone threw a paving stone through the door’s window. The burglar ripped everything out from under the front counter, apparently looking for money that might be hidden there. He eventually hit pay-dirt, locating the store’s petty cash box and register drawer tucked away under the counter: prizes totalling about $900 in cash, Leibold said. Then he emptied the donation jars.

Now, before the store is closed for the night, the money is placed in a locked safe that’s securely bolted to the floor.

Last week’s burglary is under investigation by Riverhead Police, who ask anyone with information to call the detective division at 631-727-4500. All calls will be kept confidential, police said.

The shop is both alarmed and equipped with video surveillance cameras, inside and out, Leibold said.

While the building’s side door was damaged beyond repair, there wasn’t much damage done by the burglar as he hastily ransacked the shelves under front counter looking for cash. “We’re lucky in that respect. It could have been a lot worse,” she said, noting that the theft of a tray of fresh-baked holiday cookies was just adding insult to injury.

“The most devastating part” of what happened was the theft of the donated funds, Leibold said. She’s not sure how much money was in those jars.

After the incident, the Leibolds briefly reconsidered having the donation jars in the store. Their customers convinced them to continue.

“They told us, ‘Start your donations back up again. Don’t let them ruin this.’ And we won’t,” Leibold said.

Though it was an awful experience being burglarized, everything that followed only reinforced the positives the Leibolds have felt about their family business since opening the Bean and Bagel in March 2009.

“It’s become a community hub, a place where coworkers, friends and family meet. People who come to the cemetery three or four times a year come here afterward for lunch and a visit. It’s become part of their ritual,” Leibold said.

“It’s exactly what we wanted it to be, a neighborhood shop, a family place where people feel comfortable, like home. Come in, sit down, eat and be happy,” Leibold said.

That was the tradition of her parents, Jeanette and Charlie Dassaro, proprietors of the Carving Board Restaurant on that site for more than 30 years, she said. “My father was always that way with the restaurant.”

After Charlie Dassaro passed away, the family wanted to keep the business going but felt it was time for something different. They came up with the idea of a bagel store and cafe. Joanne and her husband John, who live in Calverton not far from the store, quit their jobs to run the new enterprise. John paid a Brooklyn bagel store $1,000 for a week’s training on how to make bagels “the Brooklyn way,” Joanne Leibold said. Their three adult daughters all work in the business with them. Her mother helps out, as does her brother, who owns an auto body shop.

The cafe is named after a favorite haunt of her dad’s on the island of Barbados, where her parents had a condo. “He loved Barbados and he loved the Bean and Bagel near his condo. So when we decided to open a bagel store here, we just had to name it the Bean and Bagel— for him,” Leibold said.

The community response following the burglary showed the family they’ve succeeded at creating the kind of welcoming place they’d hoped to build. “So many people called to ask how they could help, what could they do,” Leibold said. “It was a great feeling, like a big extended family.”

Leibold said the family won’t allow the burglary to sour their trusting nature.

“I hope whoever did this really needed that money,” she said. “You have to try to remember that no child starts out in life saying they want to be a criminal or a drug addict when they grow up. There’s always a story to everyone’s life,” she said.

“You just have to hope people get the help they need to change.”

Top photo caption: Joanne Leibold and the donation jars that were emptied by a burglar who broke into the Bean and Bagel Cafe in Calverton last week.  Photo: Peter Blasl