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A café owner in the Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie borough is asking neighbours to “keep an eye out” after saying it was robbed three times this week, resulting in more than $10,000 in losses.
The back door of Café Pista on Beaubien St. E. was broken into overnight on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, according to owner Maxime Richard. Pista’s management announced the robberies on the cafe’s Instagram page on Wednesday.
“We haven’t had an issue for the past 10 years,” Richard said in an interview about the Beaubien café. He noted Pista’s downtown location was robbed 20 times in 30 days after a neighbouring building caught fire in April 2025, but the robberies at the Beaubien location came as more of a shock.
“Downtown, it’s downtown. But, Rosemont, it’s super family friendly,” he said about the neighbourhood, noting he grew up there.
Managers Théodore Fabre and Léa Sanchez Alonso explained the latch on the back door where deliveries are done was “forced open the first time, so it was simply bent out of shape,” making it easier to break in the following two nights. They also said a motion sensor on the frame of the back door didn’t set off the café alarm when it was supposed to, adding a security company is going to inspect and, hopefully, fix it this week.
Fabre said he called the police after an employee who was opening the café discovered the back door ajar, with items spewed all over the floor.
Cash, merchandise, more than 60 bags of coffee, a freezer’s worth of gravlax and ham, two iPads, the credit card readers, and the safe that was attached to the countertop were all stolen from the café, according to the owner and the managers.
On Monday, Richard said the café was “giving away coffee” since the credit card readers and cash register were stolen. “We did not have anything to make the customer pay,” he said.
But the main expense, according to Richard, will be repairing the damages and possibly replacing the back door where deliveries are done.
“Doors start at $2,000,” he said, and a commercial-grade door would cost at least $5,000.
He said after the Sunday night break-in, he asked a repairman to add an extra lock, but they told Richard it would be “overkill.”
“Once a door is broken, it can take a few days to be repaired properly,” said Richard, which is why he believes it was the same person or people who broke in three nights in a row.
While the back door of the neighbourhood café hasn’t been replaced, it now has three locks.
Since this week’s break-ins at Pista’s Beaubien location, the café has also installed security cameras and created new security protocols at all three Café Pista locations.
Fabre says he worked at the downtown location when it was robbed in April 2025. He explained after a building next door caught fire, the location was closed for seven months.
For the first month of it being closed, he said firefighters had to break down the door and windows to put out the fire next door.
“At night, some homeless people took advantage of the situation and ransacked the basement, the whole basement, everything was knocked over and overturned,” Fabre said about the robbery at Pista’s downtown location.
Montreal police refused to confirm the existence of an investigation or their involvement in the situation “to preserve the integrity of our operational processes.”
In light of the robberies, Sanchez Alonso said community members have given “strength and support” to the café.
“There were lots of people who came to the café despite the ice storm, just to give support,” she said.
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