Small local pizza shop burnt down by arsonists

My brothers pizza bar business was burnt down by arsonists on the 20th of August 2023. We don’t know why or who.

Hi, my names Claudia, my brother Dion started up a local pizza bar about 4 years ago. It was also owned and ran by my mother and father years ago. It was somewhat of a family business. A lot of good memories, laughs and good food! Recently, as of today as I type this, it was burnt down by arsonists. My brother had no Insurance as it had ran out a few months ago. There was never any rush to reinsure as obviously you never think this type of thing would ever happen.

Bar38 was a local pizza bar that was extremely popular with the locals! It was an amazing community, and it brought in life long friends. Bar38 was regularly shown in news articles as being just a straight up amazing and humble place. And it absolutely was.

Dion, my brother, is a complete workaholic. If you know him, you know he literally does not stop working. He is so work focused it is honestly so inspiring to watch him every single day. He just never stops. You couldn’t get him to stop working or think about work for even a minute. Ive seen him come home from work at 3 am in the morning and get back up at 6 am to straight back to work.

The point is, in an attempt to not ramble for hours about this (because I could), my brother has worked his fucking ass off for this business. He has put his literal blood, sweat, tears and money into this.

To expand on that last part, my brother has put every cent into this pizza bar. He has had to go without so many times due to the amount of money he has put in.

Workers are now out of work, and my brother is most upset about that. It is so upsetting having to tell your staff they’ve lost their job, due to something completely out of your hands.

My whole family is devastated. But my brother, is honestly just so disheartened. So upset, distraught, shattered, beside himself, there isn't one right enough word to explain how a business owner can feel in this moment. How can you explain how someone would feel?

He has lost everything. Everything he has worked for.

We know the whole community is shattered, all the local people, everyone who would fly down and come to this pizza bar due to recommendations.

Friends, family, every person who sees this. You have all been amazing your prayers are not going unnoticed.

I personally am helping as much as I can, unfortunately i can only do so much.

We are SO thankful for every cent we are donated, it does NOT have to be a lot of money for it to mean something. Every cent counts and it will be so appreciated, we can’t even express.

All donations will go straight to Dions business, as well as the landlord, who is unfortunately requesting money ASAP.

Thank you so much for being here and helping, we are so so thankful.

we love you

-the Bonifazio’s