The thief didn’t brandish a gun or threatened employees. Instead, he calmly walked into the local eatery and scooped an armful of tortilla towels, and walked out without paying for them.
Sadie’s of New Mexico posted a video of the thief online, showing how a man wearing a baseball cap and a blue T-shirt and displaying tattoos down his arm, made off with the merchandise in the middle of the afternoon.
“An individual came in and happened to walk out with a good amount of some tortilla towels that we sell in our retail area,” Gilbert Sanchez, the director of sales for Sadie’s of New Mexico, told KOB.
The tortilla towels cost from $14 to $22, and the blankets are nearly $30. The man snatched six combined. Store owners hope posting the thief’s picture will bring a quick resolution to the case.
“We decided to post about it on Twitter just to kind of put the awareness out to, hey, look out,” Sanchez said.
In an effort to turn a negative into a positive, Sadie’s of New Mexico is going to donate a portion of the proceeds from the remaining tortilla towels.
“This weekend, we’re going to donate a portion of the proceeds of all those tortilla towels to one of our nonprofit partners, the New Mexico Grief Center, kind of just to restore maybe some faith that there are good things you can do out there for your community,” Sanchez said.
Sadie's, according to its website, was birthed in the post-World War II era when Sadie Koury cooked authentic New Mexican cuisine in her tiny little Albuquerque restaurant at the corner of Second Street and Osuna. She retired in 1975, leaving Betty-Jo and her husband Bob Stafford to run the business, which moved to the Valley Bowl on Fourth Street. The restaurant has a reputation for exceptionally hot chiles and large portions.