Popular Folsom Street sandwich shop Deli Board found itself broken into and robbed Thursday morning, but a GoFundMe campaign has raised close to $14,000, despite (or perhaps because) how donors have politicized it.

It’s not easy to run a business in South of Market, where shootings and stabbings happen on the daily, robberies run amok, and if you're a deli owner who intervenes in a robbery, you might get brutally assaulted. So it may be a silver lining that Thursday morning’s break-in and robbery at Deli Board happened before staff or management arrived to find, as the SF Standard describes, “The metal gate was wrenched open, one of his front windows was smashed and a number of items were missing including five laptops, a record player and his Square point of sale system and cash register.”

“Sorry folks. We will be closed today for extenuating circumstances,” Deli Board posted to its Instagram Thursday, in the wake of the break-in and robbery. But the community started stepping up to help. Greek restaurant Souvla offered their spare Square reader, and by Friday morning, Deli Board annoucned “With the help of friends and neighbors we may be able to open at 11 today stay tuned.” (SFist confirmed via phone that Deli Board is indeed back open today.)

That was a nice gesture by Souvla and all, but the really encouraging sign is the response to a GoFundMe fundraiser for Deli Board, which asked for $5,000, but as of press time has nearly $14,000.

“C’mon that’s insane,” Deli Board owner Adam Mesnick told the SF Standard, meaning it in a good way. “I don’t know what to say, it’s tremendous. And I mean, I’m gushing and blushing.”

A cursory look at the GoFundMe comments, and the Instagram comments, shows that much of the support is highly politicized. These comments track along the lines of ”#RecallChesa” and “Vote Boudin out and quit voting for these far left-wing supervisors.” Mesnick himself has been a longtime and vocal critic of the neighborhood's “out of control” drug use and “homeless people drinking 40-ouncers" since at least 2015.  His @bettersoma Twitter account has a lengthy history of photographing and bellyaching about homelessness and drug-use issues on SoMa Streets, and he gave the Examiner an interview Thursday with direct criticism of DA Boudin, and indirect shade at the district’s supervisor Matt Haney.

But hey, if you just got robbed and relieved of expensive restaurant equipment, and you can muster up community support to pay for it and compensate your employees for lost wages, then it’s fair to say “whatever works.”

Related: Drug Use, General Mayhem Getting Worse In Mid-SoMa According To Deli Board Owner [SFist]

Image: deliboardsf via Instagram