COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — Four College Park businesses are picking up their pieces Monday after the owners said a man vandalized them over the weekend.
Hattie Marie's BBQ is a Black-owned business with around 500,000 Instagram followers, and they're not letting the destruction stop them.
“We got a picture, and then we ran up here," Ramona Griggie said.
Hattie Marie's owners Willie and Ramona Griggie arrived to find the front window almost completely gone.
“This was shattered. Shattered. It’s very heartbreaking. Why us? What happened?” Ramona said.
The Griggies then saw what happened on their security camera.
“He literally walked all the way down there and threw a brick through Virgil’s," Ramona said. "He came down here, grabbed a yellow chair, and he’s hitting on that window. That’s why it has a yellow streak in it.”
The man is seen moments later throwing the chair through another window.
“It's a little scary to know that somebody was that mad and they wanted to destroy our property," Ramona said.
College Park Police arrested the 35-year-old suspect and charged him with vandalizing Hattie Marie's, Milk and Cookies Exotic Snacks, Virgil’s Gullah Kitchen and Bar, and Noodle.
“We were trying to figure out why we still have glass everywhere," Ramona said.
The Griggies are still finding shards of glass inside as the dining room sits empty.
“We like to feed people and make people happy," Ramona said in disbelief about what has transpired.
Willie Griggie is Hattie Marie's son. She died of cancer eight years ago and had her own bakery in Texas.
“She taught me how to cook. She taught me how to exhibit love through cooking, so that’s something I wanted to bring to the area," Willie said.
Something else Hattie Marie would want to bring to the area is resilience.
“We're just going to try to make something here, make something like good and positive and happy looking," Ramona said.
The couple plans on a positive vibes theme for the new window to turn a negative into a positive.
Hattie Marie's plans to reopen Tuesday morning. They've set up an online fundraiser to help them with repairs.