Le Marais, a popular Castro District bakery, was ransacked and burglarized Monday night, according to owner Patrick Ascaso.
Bakers who arrived Tuesday morning at the 498 Sanchez Street location were the first to see the damage, according to Ascaso.
“This morning I got a call from one of the bakers who told us that where we keep our money had been broken into,” Ascaso said, adding he is out of town with his family for the holidays and the manager filed the police report.
The bakery, which has branches around the Bay Area, is known for traditional French pastries and light bistro fare.
In an Instagram post, Ascaso called out city and state leaders to protect small businesses.
“London Breed, Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom, if you cannot protect San Francisco’s small, local, family-owned businesses, how can our city thrive?” the post reads.
San Francisco police did not immediately respond to a request for information about the incident.
According to SFPD crime statistics from the Mission Station, which includes the Castro, as of Dec. 25 burglaries in 2022 were down 23.7% this year compared to 2021.
The bakery’s Castro location has had its glass doors smashed three times and had previously been broken into twice since 2020, Ascaso said. This time, he said, the suspects were able to take the industrial safe and destroy the inside the business.
“I’m surprised they were able to lift that thing and bring it up from the basement to upstairs but they did that. So they had they had free time to come in and out,” he added. “This time it was really dealing with the vicious ransacking and taking of whatever they think is valuable. The picture I got this morning was very sad.”
Joel Umanzor (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected]