Queensland restaurant firebombed just two weeks before grand opening
A Queensland restaurant under renovation has been targeted by a pair of arsonists.
The moment the duo smash into the business and set it alight was captured on CCTV, and came just two weeks before it’s grand opening.
A Queensland restaurant under renovation has been targeted by a pair of firebombers. 9News
Two hooded figures took a sledgehammer to the glass doors of the Underwood restaurant, about 20 kilometres south of Brisbane, just after 1am.
They’re seen pouring the contents of a jerry can inside before dumping the container and, in a flash, the business went up in smoke.
“Just stupid and childish, why would you do that? Like it doesn’t make sense,” brother and part-owner Mahdi Alabodi told 9News.
A group of brothers had just bought the space a couple of months ago and had been in the process of renovating the café, turning it into a brand-new middle-eastern grill.
A group of brothers had just bought the space a couple of months ago and had been in the process of renovating the café to turn it into their dream restaurant. 9News
“It was going to be called Tazeh, which means ‘Fresh’ in five languages, or six languages, apparently Portuguese as well,” brother and part-owner Ahmad Alabodi told 9News.
But instead, the brothers woke up today to find their dream shattered after their new restaurant was gutted, with black soot, glass and grime covering every inch.
“It was way worse than what we thought, like it’s really bad,” brother and part-owner Yasar Ozer said.
“I thought it was like 10 per cent bad, but when I walked in it was like 90 per cent bad, nearly 100 per cent even, like it was bad.
“It’s just the feeling of like, you walk in and it’s like ‘okay, you just lost everything you worked for’ kind of thing.”
Two hooded figures took a sledgehammer to the glass doors of the Underwood restaurant, about 20 kilometres south of Brisbane, just after 1am. 9News
Some of the brothers had even quit their jobs to work on this dream, spending months of hard labour as well as tens of thousands of dollars on the renovations.
“Our hands touched everything that was altered in that restaurant,” Ozer said.
Their work has now turned to cleaning up the mess left behind.
The brothers couldn’t tell 9news why they believed they were attacked but they think they may have an idea.
“We believe it was targeted and we believe there’s one target we know about but we don’t want to bring in names yet,” Ozer said.
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