If you’re reading this in your car at 5 a.m. with the police lights still flashing in your rearview mirror, I’m sorry it happened to you.
I’m not going to waste your time. Most of the people who end up calling me have already made a few decisions in the wrong order, and the cleanup costs them money and time they didn’t need to spend. So this is what I’d tell a friend who just got hit. Read it fast. Take what’s useful. Skip what you’ve already done.
I’ve walked into the aftermath of more than fifty of these in the Bay Area, including roughly ten across Concord. The pattern is consistent enough that I can usually tell you in the first phone call what your week is going to look like.
What should you do — and not do — in the first 24 hours after a break-in?
The single most expensive mistake liquor store owners make in the first 24 hours after a break-in is paying for things in the wrong order. The night of the break-in, three different vendors will try to sell you something. The one who shows up fastest is almost never the cheapest, and what they install in a panic is rarely what you actually need.
Here’s the order I’d run the first 24 hours in.
One — call the police and get a report number. Insurance won’t process a claim without the police report. Get the report number that night before you do anything else. Take photos of every angle of the damage before anyone touches it — they’ll be needed for the claim.
Two — don’t sign anything from your insurance carrier yet. Get the police report. Document the damage. But don’t formally file the claim until you understand what filing it will do to your premium. In California, one break-in claim is sometimes enough for an insurance company to drop your coverage entirely. If your damage is on the smaller end, it can be cheaper to pay out of pocket than to claim.
Three — get the store boarded up, but pick your speed level. You have two real options for tonight. A professional emergency board-up service will arrive within an hour or two and charge an emergency-response premium that adds up fast. Or you stay at the store yourself until morning, then a handyman boards it up with plywood from Home Depot for a fraction of the same-night number. Both are valid choices — one costs you sleep, the other costs you money. Don’t let anyone tell you the only option is the expensive one.
Four — don’t order replacement glass yet. Standard commercial double-door glass and frame replacement is a major expense, and unless your store has an unusual configuration, the right product can take a week or more to arrive. Spending deep into the four figures on the same glass that just got broken in 30 seconds is a decision worth slowing down for. At least look at the alternative before you commit.
Five — talk to one shutter installer. Not three. One. Get a real number on what it would cost to replace the broken glass with a shutter system that does the same job better and never has to be replaced again. Then make the comparison: glass and alarm only, or shutter plus glass plus alarm. About two-thirds of the liquor store owners I work with end up changing course at this step. The other third proceed with glass replacement and call me three years later when it happens again.
What does the financial aftermath of a liquor-store break-in actually look like?
Without putting specific dollar figures on it — your numbers depend on your store size, your configuration, and your insurance carrier — here’s the shape of what hits the books.
Emergency board-up. Significantly more expensive at same-night response rates than at next-morning DIY pace. The difference between the two paths is large enough to matter on its own, and most owners don’t realize they have a choice.
Glass and frame replacement. A major expense for a standard commercial double door, and lead time can be a week or more if your door isn’t a stock product. This is the line item that usually pushes owners to reconsider a shutter system instead.
Stolen inventory plus closed days. Liquor cleared off shelves plus the days you can’t open for cleanup, investigation, and repair. For East Bay stores carrying premium inventory, this single category often exceeds the cost of the structural damage.
Insurance premium impact. A meaningful premium bump on renewal. In California, one claim can sometimes be enough for the carrier to drop you. Ask your broker what filing this claim will do before you file it.
Did your break-in really come out of nowhere — or were there earlier signals?
In every single one of these calls I’ve taken — and I mean every one — when I get on the phone with the owner the next morning, I ask one question. Has anything happened before this? An attempted entry, a window pried open, somebody shaking your back door at midnight, a homeless person sleeping in your alcove, a tag on your roll-up.
There is always a yes.
Sometimes it’s three months ago, sometimes a year, sometimes the week before. But there is always a previous signal. Liquor stores almost never get hit cold. The same person, or the same group of people, almost always tested the store first — looking at it, walking past, trying a door handle, watching what time you leave. The successful break-in is the second or third or fourth attempt, not the first.
Every single store owner who has ever called me after a break-in said a version of this happened before. Not one has been an exception.
If you’re reading this before a break-in and you’re remembering an earlier incident you brushed off — please don’t. The first attempt is the warning. The second is the loss.
Why won’t a shutter installer be at your store tonight — and what should you do instead?
Let me be honest about something. I’m not the guy you call at 2 a.m. on the night of a break-in. Custom shutter fabrication takes time. We measure, we order, we install — typically a few days to a couple of weeks from start to finish. Anyone telling you they’ll have you shuttered up the same night is either selling you a stock product that doesn’t fit your specific door, or they’re billing emergency premium pricing for what they’re going to do anyway.
What I am is the person you call once you’re past the immediate fire and trying to make sure this doesn’t happen again. That’s the call most liquor owners make on day two or three, after they’ve boarded up, called insurance, and realized they’re about to spend a major five-figure replacement on glass that will get broken in another 30-second window six months from now.
If you want me involved in the first 72 hours, I will come look at your store and tell you what I’d do. No pressure. No same-day install promise. Just an honest assessment from somebody who’s seen 50+ versions of your situation play out.
What’s specific about a Concord liquor-store break-in?
A note on Concord, since I’ve worked roughly ten storefronts in the city. Concord has a few patterns I see less in other cities.
Plaza-style storefronts dominate. A lot of Concord’s liquor and convenience footprint sits in strip malls and shopping plazas with shared walls and shared parking. That changes what a shutter install looks like — sometimes interior mount is the only option, sometimes the plaza owner has rules about what you can attach to the exterior, sometimes you need to coordinate with neighboring tenants. None of these are dealbreakers, but they take an installer who’s worked Concord before to navigate quickly.
Multi-store owners are common. A meaningful share of Concord’s liquor and convenience operators run more than one location, sometimes across the East Bay. If that’s you, the right move after a break-in at one store isn’t just to fix that store — it’s to reassess all of them. The same crew that hit one location often knows about your other ones.
Premium inventory carries higher exposure. Average ticket on an East Bay liquor-store break-in tends to run higher than for some inland cities, because the product mix carries more top-shelf liquor. If your store carries premium product, your loss exposure on a single hit is materially bigger than a smaller liquor store further out, which changes the math on prevention spend.
Questions liquor-store owners ask after reading this
If I install a shutter after my break-in, will my insurance carrier cover it as part of the claim or do I have to pay separately? Almost always separately. Insurance claims cover restoring what was there — replacing the broken glass, the damaged frame, the stolen inventory. Upgrading from glass to a security shutter is treated as an improvement, not a repair, so it falls outside the claim. The exception is if your carrier has written shutter requirements into your policy already, in which case the claim might cover bringing you up to spec. Ask your broker the specific question: “would adding a security shutter count as a repair or an upgrade under my policy?” Get the answer before you make the install commitment.
How long should I expect to be closed during a shutter install? For a single-storefront install on a standard commercial double door, the on-site install itself is typically one to two days. The lead time before the install starts is usually three to five weeks for material to arrive. If you stay closed through the install, plan for the longer end. If you can run the install during a planned overnight or weekend window, most stores stay open through the whole process and only close briefly when the door is actively being changed over.
If I’m a multi-store owner and one location got hit, should I shutter all of them at once? Don’t try to shutter all of them at once. Start with the store that was hit, then add the one or two stores that share the most characteristics with it — same neighborhood profile, similar storefront, similar hours, similar exposure. The full reassessment is the right idea; the simultaneous install isn’t. Two or three stores at a time is the right pace. The same install crew, the same product family, the same controls — but rolled out store by store so each location gets the attention it needs.
Where to start
If you got hit, I’m sorry. Take care of the immediate stuff first. When you’re ready to talk about whether this happens to you again or not, give me a call. I’ll come walk your store and tell you what I’d do — even if the answer is “you’re fine, save your money.”
— Jessie Bajwa
Owner, Affordable Security Shutters
Fairfield, CA · 707-840-3435
