The Tom Douglas restaurant family is holding a fundraiser two weeks after the murder of pregnant restaurateur Eina Kwon in Seattle. Twenty percent of the revenue from all Tom Douglas and Company restaurants on Wednesday, June 28 will be donated to the GoFundMe page created for the Kwon family. Matt’s at the Market, Rachel’s Bagels & Burritos and Full Tilt Ice Cream are among the restaurants contributing to the cause.
On Tuesday, June 13, Eina Kwon and her husband Sung Kwon were shot and killed in a car a few blocks from their business, Abuirya Bento House. Sung Kwon was hit in the arm but recovered. Although surgeons managed to deliver Eina’s second child at eight months, the child did not survive. Police said they arrested a 30-year-old man named Cordell Goosby and charged him with first-degree murder and first-degree assault. Goosby allegedly used a stolen weapon and does not appear to know the victims. Seattle police say Goosby was suffering from a mental health crisis at the time of the shooting. On Friday, June 23, their funeral took place for Eina and her child.
The death reignited fears about violence against AAPI populations and sparked a new wave of outrage in Seattle, where debates about inner city crime and homelessness are perennial. A Korean-American who campaigned for Congress as a Republican in suburban Tacoma last year and lost has blamed Seattle’s “soft on crime” policies for the current massacre. Downtown restaurant employees and owners were particularly shaken by the shooting, as they fell on hard times due to the area’s high crime rate.
Even though crime rates have gone down, many people still suffer from mental health issues and openly use or sell narcotics on the streets. “There are pockets where you see things improving, and there are pockets where you see things not improving,” said Eric Tanaka, managing partner at Tom Douglas and event organizer. , at Eater Seattle. We’re just trying to see an overall upward trend in public safety. It doesn’t get fixed in a day. We are all trying to get there. However, this is now a difficult problem.
Tanaka, who also sits on the board of the Seattle Restaurant Association, was inspired to organize the Kwon family fundraiser after hearing about a similar event hosted by Paul Osher, owner of Rachel’s Bagels and Burritos. The Kwon family’s GoFundMe has raised around $280,000 of a goal of $500,000. Bento Aburiya restaurant is still closed.
