Local

Third Everett coffee stand robbed in about a month

EVERETT, Wash. — Another Everett coffee stand was robbed—that’s the third stand to be hit in just a month. This robbery happened around 5:00 p.m. Monday at 13 Buffalos Coffee Company on Rucker Avenue.

In this case, a man walked up to the window and said he had a gun, but didn’t show it, but that doesn’t make the situation any less terrifying for the baristas who say they have to prepare for this.

One of those baristas—Lisa Deshazer—is friendly, polite and professional, until someone responds to her pleasantries with a gun and a demand.

"After I got robbed, I got robbed at gunpoint and went and got a permit right away," she explained.

That incident was several years ago.

Lisa and her daughter Serenity Lundquist, who also works at 13 Buffalos, weren’t working last night when a man who said he had a gun forced the barista here to hand over a cup full of money, but sadly neither was surprised that happened.

“No, comes with this business.  I’ve been doing this long enough, I know it just comes with, you’re expecting it,” Lisa told us, and she says it will undoubtedly happen again.

The baristas say the frustrating part is that they really can’t do anything to prevent the robberies.  At 13 Buffalos, the incidents have never happened at the window that faces the street; they happen at the window that faces the parking lot, and always early in the morning, or late at night when it’s dark.

That is when a barista at a neighboring stand was robbed in early December.

“Man, if I didn’t do something right, he could have shot me,” she told us then.

She handed over the money—which is exactly what Lisa tells the girls who are unarmed at 13 Buffalos to do.

“It’s a couple dollars, it’s not worth it, I mean their lives—it’s covered by insurance anyway, we’re not going to put them in danger,” Lisa said.

She’d like to see all of the nearly 30 coffee stands in Everett create a social media group to discuss and share information about these kinds of crimes and other suspicious people to watch out for.