Palo Alto Ice Cream Shop Burglarized, Manager Worries Of Safety

PALO ALTO, CA — In the nine years that Kiki Khosla has managed Rick’s Ice Cream, a popular Palo Alto mom-and-pop ice cream shop on Middlefield Road, she has never seen any trouble.

But on Friday morning, when Khosla looked at the security cameras to see if an expected delivery had arrived, she instead saw “a bunch of stuff on the floor.” Khosla called her mom, who lived near the store, and asked her to see what had happened.

Her mom found that the store had been burglarized around midnight the night before. More than $3,000 had been taken from the cash register. The suspect had ripped out the safe from the back office and dragged it outside, rummaged through storage shelves and drawers, stole two iPads and broke other electronics.

Khosla filed a report with the police, who have not yet identified a suspect. She said the surveillance footage could not identify the suspect clearly. He wore a gaiter up to his eyes, a beanie, gloves and a hoodie with the words “San Jose” on the back, Khosla said. Patch has reached out to the Palo Alto Police Department about the incident.

Rick’s Ice Cream first opened in 1956, according to a GoFundMe page that was started to raise funds for the shop at the onset of the pandemic. The fundraiser brought in more than $18,000, and during the pandemic, Khosla has been heartened by how the shop’s local customers make a point to keep coming by.

“The saddest part is that we are barely surviving due to the pandemic and being a small business, every small expense and damage counts,” Khosla told Patch on Monday. “The only reason we were able to survive this long was the fact that the community was really supportive.”

Khosla said she has never felt afraid in what is generally a safe neighborhood, but a string of recent crime incidents in the area has her a bit shaken. A few weeks ago, the Baskin Robbins a mile-and-a-half away was robbed at gunpoint by a suspect who was later apprehended. On Mar. 17, several people were robbed near the Cubberley Community Center, which is across the street from Rick’s Ice Cream.

Khosla has invested in an alarm system, which she never thought was necessary before, because “who thinks of robbing an ice cream shop?” Customers have been expecting the store, which is currently closing at 7 p.m., to eventually expand its hours, but now Khosla is not so sure. Most of her staff is female, and she is worried for their safety.

“I’m not sure everyone would feel just staying here that late, in comparison to before when we didn’t have concerns about safety — and now we do,” Khosla said.

Khosla is hoping that insurance will cover the damage, and the store never closed despite the incident.

“As long as it’s operational, people can come in and buy ice cream," Khosla said. "That’s what we were more concerned of. Even on the day of the robbery, we just cleaned it up enough so we could serve and open.”