AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin restaurant owners showed up to their business to find thousands of dollars worth of cooked barbecue meat and other kitchen items were stolen early Saturday morning.
The owners of well-known Austin barbecue joint, Mum Foods, showed up around 7:15 a.m. to find the lock on their trailer was cut and 300 pounds of pastrami and brisket were gone.
“There’s just a feeling of vulnerability that’s uncomfortable,” said Geoff Ellis, Founder of Mum Foods.
Ellis said the thief took tables, butcher paper, rubber gloves and a Yeti cooler valued at $800. The cooler was used as a hot box to store the cooked meat.
He estimates the stolen brisket, pastrami, chicken and sausage to be about $2500.
Surveillance video appears to show someone pull up with a truck and flatbed trailer shortly before 5:30 a.m. Watch it below:
The Mums Food trailer is located outside the restaurant’s prep facility on Stassney Lane in South Austin.
The location is where Mums Food does much of their cooking and stores supplies for their restaurant, which is located off of Manor Road in East Austin.
The thief’s truck and trailer is seen on video parked there for the next few minutes, before it pulls away.
The video does not catch the person involved in the crime.
“This really does seem like somebody who knew what was in the trailer, what they were getting themselves into, and had a plan for distributing it and selling it,” Ellis told KXAN.
If you have any information about this case, you’re asked to call Austin police.
“If we don’t do our best to try to identify this person, chances are they’ll get comfortable enough to target another person or another business,” said Ellis.
