Santa Fe chef loses livelihood after thief causes $10K in damages to food truck

SANTA FE, N.M. – A chef in Santa Fe has lost his livelihood after a thief broke into his food truck and trashed it.

“I think some drug addict might have just broke in looking for money,” said Randy Tapia, chef of Poki Tako Food Truck.  

Tapia found the mess when he checked on his food truck on Tuesday morning. A thief pried off the lock and broke in, stealing cash, a generator and vandalizing the food truck. 

“When we opened the door, it was just an utter mess, they destroyed everything. Stole my generator, stole all kinds of stuff, threw all my food out of the refrigerators. Just made a big mess, horrible,” said Tapia. 

Tapia estimates the thief did about $10,000 in damage and to make matters worse – his insurance won’t cover it. 

“This impacts me pretty horrible because I’m barely starting. I started Dec. 21 2021and I’m barely starting to get traction and get on my feet as a small business owner, and to have something like this happen – it’s devastating. Especially for the fact that I didn’t even have the correct insurance covering me on this,” Tapia said. 

He’s now set up a GoFundMe page to get back on his feet and is hoping to be serving up food to the community again soon.

“My goal is to just keep serving the public and get back on my feet as soon as I can. I love what I do, I love serving people wonderful food and that’s why I got into this business to begin with because I like making people happy through my food,” said Tapia. 

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