Despite the break-in, the Liberty Elm Diner, shown in a photo from last month, is back in business.

The Providence Journal Sandor Bodo

PROVIDENCE — There had been a surprise birthday party the night before by a group that booked the Liberty Elm Diner for a festive evening, and it had taken until after 1 a.m. to clean up, but when partners Carol DeFeciani and Diane Horstmyer opened up at 7 a.m. yesterday they encountered another surprise, this time a nasty one.

“We found the back door had been pried open,” DeFeciani said.

Inside were the marks of the vandals. Pennies from an old-fashioned weight-and-fortune machine were strewn on the floor, and the machine had been busted open. A gumball machine had been smashed open, its colorful contents scattered, some of the sugar-coated spheres mashed. A later tally showed that an iPod was missing and so was a 50-pound bag of potatoes.

A laptop computer “with all of our bookkeeping” was gone, DeFeciani said, as was a notary’s seal that belonged to an employee.

“Who would take a notary seal?” DeFeciani wondered.

The partners took over the historic diner at 777 Elmwood Ave., on the city’s South Side, in August 2007 and have been making a name for themselves with a menu that features local ingredients — coffee from New Harvest Coffee Roasters in Pawtucket, Yacht Club soda from Bristol, hamburger rolls from Superior Bakery in Cranston, dairy from Little Rhody Foods in Foster, seasonal produce from a youth garden in their Elmwood neighborhood and from Confreda Greenhouses in Cranston. Their butter and flour are from Vermont.

“We had heard a lot of bad rap about this end of town,” Horstmyer said. “It’s actually kind of reaffirming to me that we have been in business a little over a year and this is the first incident we have had.”

She said that “disappointing” was not quite the word she would use to describe the scene. “A little bit of devastation,” she said.

In the kitchen, eggs lay smashed on the floor. Pancake batter had been poured around.

“I don’t know why they would do this sort of thing if all they wanted was money,” commented DeFeciani as a detective dusted for fingerprints.

Horstmyer worked the entrance to the diner, intercepting customers and telling them the diner would have to remain closed until it was cleaned up. “Sundays are our busiest days,” she said. “I’m just seeing dollars go down the toilet.”

DeFeciani worried about the diner’s six employees. She said the damage was covered by insurance, but she wasn’t sure whether the insurance would cover their wages.

They got going on the cleanup after the detective had finished his work and gave the all-clear.

“We’ve cleaned up the mess and opened our doors again,” Horstmyer reported later in the afternoon. “Life goes on. We came back to life.”

She said they would secure the back door — a formidable metal structure that had been warped by a pry bar. “We’ll just take our lumps and be on our merry way. People have been really kind today. We’re back in the saddle — we are keeping it to a walk, but we’ll be back to a gallop next week.”

tmorgan@projo.com