Last Saturday morning around 6 AM, two men attempted to rob a restaurant here in Los Angeles. The restaurant was Lawry's the Prime Rib, a fine institution where I often dined when I was eating larger portions than I now crave or could digest.
The men put a gun to the skull of one of the chefs and asked, "Where's the money?" Then they demanded to know where the safe was. When the chef told them he couldn't open the safe, the intruders got spooked (that's what it said in all the news reports) and fled. It turned out that the police had been monitoring the two chaps — they'd pulled armed robberies before — and as they left, they were immediately tracked by a police helicopter and pursued by units on the ground.
It all ended not far from where I live. One of the thieves was shot before they both surrendered and were taken into custody…a nice ending, of course. But there's something I want to know…
Why Lawry's? Of all the places in this city to pull an armed robbery, why Lawry's? At six on a Saturday morning?
How much could they possibly have gotten? True, a meal at Lawry's is not cheap. It's been years since I got out of there for under $40 a person and that's just meat, mashed taters and creamed corn. I'm sure with wine and dessert, it could run twice that…but this just suggests to me that most people pay with credit cards. How much cash might the restaurant actually have had on hand?
And what made the crooks think it would be there at six in the ayem or that a chef would have had access to it? The place doesn't even open until 4:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday. If they did collect any significant amount of cash the night before, would they be likely to keep it on the premises for the whole weekend?
Also: That guy who cooks and carves prime rib for a living probably has a pretty sharp knife within arm's reach and is very skilled at handling it.
I can understand not wanting to rob a bank. Banks have security guards and cameras and all sorts of anti-robbery devices. But the penalty for armed robbery is pretty much the same wherever you rob. Shouldn't you pick a place that's likely to have a large sum of greenbacks on hand? I'll bet they could have gotten more loot at a Denny's. Plus, at 6 AM, they could have gotten a Grand Slam Breakfast to go.