EUGENE, Ore. (KMTR) -- With some major help from friends and neighbors, a downtown Eugene food cart is bouncing back after losing hundreds of dollars in product.
Sometime over the weekend, vandals caused of hundreds of dollars in damage to the Wrap City food cart at Kesey Square on Broadway and Willamette Street in downtown Eugene.
Whoever did it pulled out the cart’s locked up power source and destroyed their outdoor seating area as well. Vandals also left boxes of wine on top of the cart.
The cart’s owner, Jessica Thomason found the damage on Monday morning. The damage to the power source cut all the power to the cart’s food supply, spoiling everything inside.That forced Jessica to close business all day on Monday. She was also forced to replace all of the food inside.
The vandalism was nearly enough to force the six month business to close entirely. However many people stepped up to help fix the problems almost immediately.
“[It] seems like we're better off now that we were before,” says Thomason.
Thomason says the Saturday Market Corporation and the Downtown Red Caps immediately turned out to help, getting electrical crews on scene within ten minutes and getting other people’s help to throw out the spoiled food.
In the meantime, the word got out and business spiked with loads of new food orders, big tips and anonymous donations.
"Its been an amazing transformation that has happened down here and it just really makes me realize that we love our downtown. We love the people that live here as well. We're just not going to put up with the illegal activity and as a team we can all do it together,” says Jessica Thomason, owner and operator of the Wrap City food cart.
Jessica is open for business now and says things are going well. She says the incident hasn’t discouraged her and she is planning on staying downtown.
Eugene Police is looking for any information on this case. If you can help, call their tip line at 541 682-8888.
