Thieves steal rug from Madonna Inn Steakhouse 4 years in a row. Is it a fraternity prank?

For four straight years, the Madonna Inn has been the victim of an unusual heist.

A group of young men — seemingly college-aged — walk into the steakhouse and go down the stairs toward the gift shop. They linger for a bit before returning up the stairs, grabbing the steakhouse welcome rug then dashing to a getaway car waiting in the parking lot.

During the most recent theft on March 9, the men pushed two customers out of the way as they ran between them before jumping into a dark-colored Subaru and speeding off, Madonna Inn Steakhouse manager Connie Pearce told The Tribune. The car nearly collided with another vehicle on the way out.

“It’s a serious problem,” Pearce said. “It’s something that is getting out of hand, and I don’t want to see one of them hurt. I also don’t want to see them running over a small child. The way that they leave out of here is really dangerous, and somebody could get run over.”

An employee that chased the suspects to the car said the partial license plate number was 0859A and does not believe it was a California plate, Pearce said.

The men wore face masks during the first three incidents, but not during the March 9 theft.

This most recent incident was reported to Cal Poly, who told The Tribune the university is “looking into the matter.”

The San Luis Obispo Police Department said they saw the March 9 incident on Facebook and reached out to the Madonna Inn Steakhouse to help investigate the theft.

Rug heist strikes Madonna Inn Steakhouse 4 times

The rug thefts began four years ago.

The first occurred on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021, at around 10:45 pm.

A Madonna Inn spokesperson said they spoke with Cal Poly at the time because they believed it could be a student life organization pledge or initiation prank. The inn decided to go straight to the university “in hopes that it would not repeat itself” and nothing further was pursued.

Then about a year later, on Friday, Oct. 28, 2022, at around 10 p.m., thieves struck again.

That time, surveillance video shows two young men — one wearing a sailor’s hat — walking into the inn, going downstairs, then returning back upstairs to snatch the rug and run to a getaway car.

This time, one of the men were wearing a sweatshirt with duct tape covering everything except “Pi Kappa Phi,” a fraternity that has a chapter at Cal Poly.

Giancarlo Galli, president of Cal Poly Pi Kappa Phi, told The Tribune that the fraternity had no involvement in the thefts and does not know who could be committing them.

“My understanding of the situation is that over the last couple years there have been multiple occasions of non-members of our fraternity wearing makeshift letters to burglarize items from the Madonna Inn, namely rugs from what I have heard,” Galli said in the emailed statement.

Fall fraternity rush at Cal Poly typically begins in late September to early October while winter rush typically takes place in mid-January.

After the second theft, the Madonna Inn spokesperson said they contacted Cal Poly again and the university said to file an incident report with the Office of Students Rights and Responsibilities. The report was filed on Nov. 2, 2022, but the inn spokesperson said they did not receive any other follow-up from the university.

They did not file a police report with SLOPD because they, again, were hoping to handle the situation directly with the university, the spokesperson said.

The third incident occurred on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, at around 5 p.m.

Because of the time the men arrived, the parking lot was much busier than the first two incidents. The Madonna Inn spokesperson said the footage she reviewed showed the men spending more than 40 minutes on property “to get up the nerve to take the carpet and run.”

At one point, footage shows the men going back out to the getaway car where those inside the car physically pushed them back out to return to the inn and take the rug.

The getaway car that year — a tan Toyota Tacoma — nearly hit another car as it “bolted” out of its parking spot, the spokesperson said. This incident was reported to SLOPD through the neighborhood liaison, the inn said.

The most recent incident on March 9 was “the most aggressive,” according to both Pearce and the spokesperson.

The getaway car waited directly in front of the Steakhouse entrance, the thieves pushed through two guests and they almost caught a Madonna Inn employee in the car door before speeding through the lot and cutting off a car at the exit.

This incident was reported to both Cal Poly and SLOPD, the spokesperson said, adding that they are working with three Cal Poly student organizations to discuss the issue in person.

“It is no longer simply a nuisance to the business,” the spokesperson said. “It needs to stop. “

The inn is currently looking at options to prevent future rug thefts as it continues to cooperate with investigations, the spokesperson said.

Anyone with additional information is asked to contact the San Luis Obispo Police Department Community Services Officer Henderson at 805-594-8061 or anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 805-549-STOP (7867).