Help Cal Bowl Coffee Shop Recover!

Hi everyone, thank you for coming to our Go Fund Me page. This is a first for me and my family, so the support is appreciated. My name is Kathryn, and I am the daughter of Bryn Yamamoto. I'm pictured on the far right of the bench in yellow pants, and my mom is sitting next to me in a blue hat. My dad is pictured standing on the far left in the orange hat. My mom recently fulfilled a lifelong dream of opening a restaurant for the first time in 24 years, as this is her second attempt. Even though we lived in Los Angeles, and this restaurant space was in Lakewood, CA, by Long Beach Airport, we knew we had to do it. We put our heart and soul into this restaurant, from the second we knew it was going to happen. Months of cleaning, remodeling, negotiations, unseen complications, and thousands of dollars invested into this location. The months nearly added up to a year, but we finally did it. We opened less than 3 months ago, on February 1, 2023, and have been managing as best as we can, since. With our friends and family as our employees, my mother tried her best to fulfill her dreams. Having come from a family that owned bowling alley coffee shops, this was too good a chance for her to pass up. A chance to feel connected to her late parents again, to have something to call her own, and to continue to make connections since she loves meeting people. The unimaginable happened to us this past Friday, April 21, 2023, during closed hours and before my mom had come in to open. We had been broken into and robbed, through an insecure unit adjacent to ours. We have no control over that space and have done our best to keep our restaurant safe within compliance with our building guidelines. Our paperwork, checks, locked safe, laptop and our sous chef's college culinary kit, were among the items stolen from us. The items can be replaced, but the sentimental value and hard-earned finances cannot be replaced as easily. I've watched my mother keep a smile on her face and extend empathy to everyone she's met, but it was harder to watch her do it while she feels so defeated. As a small business, it's hard to start up, it's harder to keep growing. But to add in the feeling of defeat and victimization from a robbery is too much. "It'll get better," is what she tells me, my father, herself, every day and night. But it hurt to hear her say it after the robbery. It hurt to see her have to call her employees and let them know that we had to be closed for the day, and promise to be open the next day. It hurt to see her feel guilty to take the day of the robbery off, solely because she knew that she had employees depending on her. I know she didn't get the time to emotionally heal, and I don't know if she ever will right now. My mother is a strong woman, who inspires me, and I know she inspires others, as well. She worked as a single mother with two boys, remarried, was diagnosed with Lupus, had me as a high-risk pregnancy, supported my dad through his endeavors, recovered from being wheelchair-bound, and managed to put her Lupus in remission. To name a few of her amazing accomplishments. I'm opening this Go Fund Me page because I want to help my mother continue to pursue her dream, but I am only one person. My mother has touched so many people and made so many people smile with her kind words and delicious food. Even if you were a stranger, she was ready to sit and listen if you needed a shoulder and make you a basket of Hawaiian Malasada Donuts on the house. I just wanted to try and open this to see if I can show my mother just how many people she's touched, how many people care for her, or how someone she's never met can empathize with her and help her small business. The funds collected will go into replacing our laptop ($1500), making repairs and adding security ($1500), replacing our sous chef's culinary kit ($1000) and to replace the safe and its contents ($1000).  Thank you for visiting our page, and thank you for reading this. If you can donate, it would be appreciated, but we would appreciate even just sharing our link! Mahalo plenty, mm goi, and arigatou from our family to yours!