McKinney Restaurant Owner Says Burglar Caused Around $10,000 Of Damage
MCKINNEY, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - In a matter of minutes, thousands of dollars worth of damage was done at a historic downtown McKinney restaurant Monday morning.
"You put your heart and soul into your business, into your community.. so it's tough," Rick's Chophouse owner Rick Wells said.
Wells described learning his restaurant was burglarized. "All the windows were broken out and pretty heavy patio chairs were thrown through the windows," he said.
Inside, items he considered priceless were vandalized.
"My grandfather's hat.. that was all smashed," he said. "It's been in our family for about 75 years.."
In total, Wells estimates around $10,000 worth of damage was done.
Kyle Weltner, 28, was arrested for burglary to a building, a felony offense. After talking to police, Wells believes he was just trying to destroy things. He said McKinney police caught him in the act around 6 a.m.
Wells posted what happened to his restaurant on Facebook.
"Within 15 minutes there were 300 comments and everybody trying to see what they can do," Rick's Chophouse employee Hailey Morris said.
Morris said in the eleven years Rick's has been in business, Wells has made an impact.
"He really just always finds the positive in things," she said.
She said it was opening in time for lunch and putting tortilla soup back on the menu.
"We recently changed our menu and we had a lot of unhappy guests about it so we put a sign on the window that said okay, okay we'll put the tortilla soup back on the menu now please stop breaking things," Morris said.
"We try to make lemonade out of lemons and we did that today," Wells said.
Weltner has a prior criminal history including drug possession and assault.