A Colorful Neighborhood Wine Bar was Vandalized and Burglarized Yesterday

Pairings Wine Shop & Bar, Kerns’ eclectic and goofy bottle shop and wine bar, was burglarized on Thursday morning. A thief broke in around 6 a.m. and stole $150 in cash and a wine bottle, leaving serious property damage that included broken windows, a shattered computer, and a vandalized funeral urn. He then broke into 24th & Meatballs across the street, where he was caught on video —according to 24th and Meatballs manager Blake Kusler, he was a skinny male wearing a hoodie who looked “drugged,” though his face was obscured.

Pairings owner Jeffrey Weissler, known for his gregariousness and creative wine flights, says the thief broke in through the back door with a rock and vandalized the space, likely looking for cash. Aside from $150 taken from the cash drawer, the burglar only stole a bottle of wine, leaving Weissler’s iPad, which was found in the garbage. Weirdly, Weissler found a stick of butter under a counter with a spoon sticking out of it.

The worst of the damage happened in the downstairs office. “Downstairs looked like a hurricane hit,” Weissler says. Belongings were strewn about, a shattered lightbulb was on the floor, and the urn with Weissler’s mother’s remains had been stabbed with a screwdriver and left on top of a refrigerator.

The suspect then broke into 24th & Meatballs across the street, where he was spotted on camera. Kusler says he shattered the front window on the 24th Avenue side of the street, crawled in, and ate a cookie before perusing the refrigerators. He then threw the wine bottle from Pairings through the window of the front door and exited out the same window he entered, taking nothing.

Weissler says that insurance would cover all but $500 of the damages to Pairings, and the store is already open for business with a weekend full of wines flights paired to iconic horror films.