Robbery!

Want to hear the story of the robbery that happened when I worked at the Pizza Place the first time?

Sure you do.

I was the general manager at the time, I had just come in for my closing shift. Jay, my shift runner opened, and my assistant Anne was there too to help with the dinner rush. I also had the BEST instore pizza topper/phone answerer that I have ever worked with, Dee. I told him I loved him every single day because he was my best employee.

We had several drivers on that night, and I know the only one in the store was Ron. One of the foreigners was there, if not both, and I think the old man was there too.

When I had come in the door Jay had handed the safe keys off to me to give out money to the drivers. Our Area Supervisor had just left the store on his way back to the office and we were all settling into the dinner rush vibe.

If you walk in the door to our resturant you come up to a counter, to your right is the opening to let employees in and there are spaces for two customers to be helped at once, though we only ever used one till. Behind the cashiers was the cut table, and the pizza making station was to the left of the cashiers (as you face them). The pizza making station stretches along that wall putting the topping station right alongside the oven.

Generally, you cannot hear a thing when you are topping a pizza. Thats where I was about quarter after 5. I heard Jay say something, but couldn't make it out. I was topping a works pizza, putting on the ham, the second to last topping before the cheese. "What?" I call back to him, not lifting my eyes from my pizza.

"KEYS" he shouts, and I look over to where he is standing at the slap station and he points to the front door.

We only had like 10 orders in, tops. The vantage point from the top station to the door is nil on a busy night, the opening of the cut station gets filled with boxes and that night I could see straight through; just in time to see a not too friendly looking gentleman step around the counter and pull the phone away from Dee who was taking an order at the time.

I remember turning back to my pizza for a split second. I swore. I know I swore. I'm pretty sure it was just a simple "Fuck". I remember throwing the handful of ham into my pizza before walking over to the front of the store.

There were two of them. The unfriendly gentleman was holding a knife in his right hand. Go pull the biggest knife out of your knife block, not the butcher knife, that fat pointy one. That's the knife he had. He held it below waist level, pointed at the floor and only once gestured with it.

Twitchy dude watched the door and kept telling his friend to hurry. I believe I conveyed my utter disgust for them in the one brief stare I gave each of them, but I never made like I wasn't going to do exactly what they told me to do.

I popped open till B, which we kept set with a particular amount of money, but never used. Then popped till A, which had *maybe* a hundred dollars in it because we had had a slow morning, it was midweek after all. I did not offer to open the safe, and he did not ask me to so I stepped back and let him have it.

He demanded a bag from me. In a fraction of a second I had three thoughts. "They're in the back," "I'm not leaving the boys alone." and "Dee is 17" and I said "We don't have any bags"

They make us get on the floor, Unfriendly gentleman takes Ron's wallet and they dissapear out the door. Anne follows them to the door and locks it behind them and I turn to Jay to see him pull a cellphone out of his pocket and stick it to his ear. "Are you still there?" he asks "Yeah, this is Pizza Place and we just got robbed"

"911." I think to myself. "Good, I don't know if I could handle *that* call"

Dee has returned to the phone that was torn from his ear and enquires if the party is still on the line. I pick up another phone and dial in my Area Supervisor's cell number.

Something you should know about this AS. The store I was managing was his baby. It was the store he turned around and put in the green before turning it over to me to take a promotion. He was a former marine and really a kind of rough guy, but sweet too (though I was the only one who said it, and i got *lovingly* beat on when I did). When he had been the GM every day was a riot on his shift, we were roudy and obnoxious and had a ton of fun.

So he answers the phone: "WHAT!?"

my voice is so much calmer than i thought it would be, "Hi Andy, how are you?"

"What do you want? I just left!"

"We just got robbed"

"Shut the fuck up"

"No, I'm serious. I think you should come back here."

"Fuck!" *click*

yeah, he hung up on me, whatever. I knew he was coming back. So the cops come and talk to everyone and I spend 15 minutes on the phone telling everyone that had ordered "sorry, we got robbed, i can't fill your order at this time, but i can give you a free pizza next time you order as a sorry" almost everyone was ok about it, was concerned about our saftey, and very graciously accepted the free pizza offer with well wishes for the night.

notice i say 'almost everyone'. The woman that Dee was rudly disconnected from, after being told that we had been robbed sighed in disgust and said "well can i finish my order now!?" one man talked to got angry with me, and a couple that i spoke to showed up 15 minutes later to pick it up, and couldn't understand why we wouldn't just make it for them.

Anyway, to wrap it all up... Dee told the police officers he had seen the two guys talking to a girl in hospital scrubs, and pacing up and down the mall (everyone else in the strip mall had seen them too and were all getting wigged - only we didn't notice them since we are set further back from our windows). The girl turned out to be Ron's girlfriend so Ron brought her back in and we all gave our descriptions.

They got dogs, and followed them up the hill, around a corner, and down the road a little ways. We went down one by one and identified them.

I later saw one of the cops in a parking lot and he told me that they had been put away for "a while" were his words. good.