LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Less than a week after Little Rock’s Certified Pies was robbed, another break-in took place not that far away at Three Sam’s BBQ Joint.
Early in the morning on Friday, Dec. 13, thieves broke in and stole numerous items in what has been yet another setback that the restaurant has had over the years.
In March of 2016, Three Sam’s caught fire, forcing the restaurant to close for over a year.
And in 2023, a drunk driver crashed into the restaurant’s smoker, forcing them to close for a few days and buy a whole new one, as well as repair the cage the smoker was in.
“It's been just ... it's just constant,” store manager Martine Dionne said about the multiple setbacks.
She said the restaurant received a call from Entergy around 3:45am that their power had been cut, but nobody was awake to see the message at the time.
“About 6:00 [Friday] morning,” Dionne said, “We get here and they had ripped out our power box, our meters and stuff, and they had climbed on an old bar stool through our kitchen window.”
The power being cut means there’s no security footage of the thieves, and it also means the restaurant lost heat, forcing them to use space heaters for the time being.
As far as what the thieves took, Dionne said it was quite a bit.
“They had come in and stolen our register,” Dionne said. “They stole the money for the register, a couple personal belongings, a laptop. They took the DoorDash tablet. Why? I don’t know.”
She also noted that they took around 80 pounds of hamburger meat, while neglecting more expensive meats like brisket and pork.
The robbery forced the restaurant to open an hour late Friday with a limited menu.
But Dionne said having been through much worse, the restaurant’s crew is a resilient bunch and she has no doubt they’ll bounce back from this setback with the support of the local community.
“We have such great regulars and customers that rally around,” Dionne said. “This is just a small bump in the road. We were all here today and we were all working together great, and it was just like another normal day for us. So like I said, we'll come out on the other side.”
Dionne said the main thing they’ll need to do now is replace the things that were lost, but she said it shouldn’t put them out too badly.
She said they’re also be in touch with the Little Rock Police Department who is investigating.
We reached out to the Little Rock Police Department, but all they could tell us is that the investigation is ongoing and they don’t have any information on possible suspects yet.