WEST TOWN — Joe Fontana sometimes makes use of beef tallow to prepare dinner the french fries at his 9 Fry the Coop eating places. However final week, Fontana was generously spreading the slippery stuff on the entrance door deal with of his West City location at 1529 W. Chicago Ave.
Inside, Fontana engaged in additional “House Alone”-inspired antics, documenting them in an Instagram video posted Friday. He lined a part of the doorway in clear plastic wrap and tied a six-pack of canned beer to a beam overhead. He dusted a $100 invoice with an orange-colored spice combination, putting it contained in the money register. And he taped $9 — a $5 invoice and 4 $1 payments, to be actual — subsequent to the entrance door with an indication that learn, “Simply take it!”
Whereas not the everyday response after your small business will get damaged into — for the third time, as was the case right here — utilizing humor has grow to be Fontana’s default technique for coping with challenges.
The video was the third in a collection of posts Fontana and his social media supervisor Erin Byrne placed on Instagram within the days following the Tuesday morning break-in. They captioned the primary video, “When it’s 4am and also you run out of Coop Sauce?!”
A pun-filled slideshow posted the subsequent day opened with the caption, “Breaking information!! Right here’s what’s new at Fry the Coop,” and a photograph of the massive gap within the smashed-in entrance door. “Our new cheese sauce is pane-fully scrumptious” learn one other caption.
“In any case this, our glass continues to be half full (a minimum of they didn’t take our Malort ❤️),” the ultimate caption learn.
The burglars took about “9 {dollars} in change” from the register, stated Fontana.
The three social media posts have racked up greater than 5,500 likes and loads of optimistic responses. However Fontana wasn’t laughing when he first watched the two-minute livestream of the break-in whereas at his dwelling in suburban Downers Grove — though he did discover some humor in the truth that the burglars needed to throw a brick eight instances to lastly break the double-pane glass.
He didn’t giggle both when he acquired the early-morning telephone name from Chicago police alerting him to the break-in at his West City store.
As soon as he arrived and noticed that police had waited an hour for him, “I believed that was very nice, as a result of you’ve this wide-open restaurant the place anyone might simply stroll in,” Fontana stated.
Fontana stated he felt much more grateful when a person throughout the road who was boarding up the window of one other store that had been damaged into agreed to assist board up Fry the Coop’s home windows. Fry the Coop was certainly one of three companies within the space burglarized about 3:06 a.m. Tuesday, ABC7 reported.
“That’s why I’m right here,” the person informed Fontana, and quoted him an affordable worth. He additionally referred to as his “glass man” to cease by Fry the Coop, Fontana stated.
The person — an worker with Tri County Board Up & Glass Restore — informed Fontana he listens to a police scanner as he drives round ready for inevitable break-ins. The night time earlier than, 18 hair salons in suburban Des Plaines and Niles and on the Northwest Aspect had been burglarized, the person informed Fontana.
“I’d name him a hero,” stated Fontana, who had been freaking out about how he was going to get all of it accomplished by himself. “As a small enterprise proprietor, I’d do not know who to name.”
After Fontana completed sweeping up the damaged glass, he connected a brand new money drawer and printer. By 6 a.m. Tuesday, Fry the Coop was boarded up, with new double-pane glass set to reach in a day or two. By 10 a.m., the restaurant was open for enterprise as normal.
“The group has been coming collectively to exit of their means to assist us,” Fontana stated.
Fontana developed his strategy to coping with life’s setbacks years in the past when he acquired into the restaurant enterprise. Slightly than get pissed off over difficulties, he determined to embrace them, he stated.
“I believe irrespective of the place you’re in life, when you’re wealthy or poor, wholesome or unhealthy, there are all the time issues,” Fontana stated. “Life is difficult for everybody. The extra you may keep optimistic about these issues the higher.”
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