Burglars caught on camera stealing copper wire from Capt.'s Hard Times

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A historic South Side Chicago restaurant was the target of burglars. A man with a ladder and wire cutters was caught on their security cameras.

"Never, ever happened since I've been here. Never," said Josephine "Mother" Wade.

Wade stood behind her iconic restaurant, Captain's Hard Times Dining, glaring at the severed wires that thieves snatched Tuesday night.

"And I would have just always thought with the input and my relationship with the community, this couldn't happen to me, But it did," she said.

Her cameras caught the burglars working in the dark. One carried a ladder, cable cutters on his shoulder. They were after copper.

Left behind, cables now sheared, the restaurant is dark and remains closed.

"We cannot open up because we do not have the electrical. We have all the food in and stuff in our freezers that we are going to now lose," Wade said.

In three decades Mother Wade said she's never been robbed, and has always been respected as a pillar in her community. That changed Tuesday night.

"I feel like I want to go home, and lay down and don't get up. But I know I'm a fighter. And I know that I know what tough time is, because I've been through it," she said.

Mother Wade said the repairs will cost her between $10,000 and $20,000. Her electricians said the thieves will make a couple hundred bucks on the copper they stole.