East London pizzeria Flat Earth launches crowdfund after vandal smashes windows

The Bethnal Green restaurant, which launched in April last year​​ and is located on the edge of Broadway Market, had seven of its windows smashed by a man with a hammer last Tuesday (7 March). It is the third time in six months that the restaurant has been targeted by vandals. 

In response, Flat Earth Pizza founders Sarah Brading and Rich Baker have launched a crowdfund campaign on GoFundMe to raise £15,000​​ to fund the installation of electric shutters as well as help cover the costs incurred by the attack. 

“We’re at the end of our tether now,” Brading and Baker wrote on their GoFundMe page.

“Although we will claim for the seven broken windows on insurance, there are a number of costs that we need to incur. Costs include lost trade and overheads spent during closure and hiked insurance premium and excess. To protect our business, we are installing electric shutters which are beyond our budget. We simply don’t have the money when it conflicts with our quarterly rent payment and other costs that we have.

“We’ve set up this GoFundMe page with the hope of raising £15,000 to cover these costs and build back better. The emotional cost of this traumatic experience can’t ever be compensated for.”

According to the pair, the recent vandalism appears to be part of a spate of attacks on small businesses in and around London, with four others within a five-minute walk from Flat Earth Pizza also targeted. Brading has written to both Mayor of London Sadiq Khan as well as her local MP calling for support for businesses like hers' that have been victimised by vandals, and for more to be done to protect small businesses from the impact of such attacks.

“There’s been no help from them, despite small businesses being a vital part of the local economy,” the pair add.

“We will continue to fight for this.”

At the time of writing, the Flat Earth Pizza crowdfund had raised £2,511. To view the GoFundMe page, click here​​.