After more than a decade in a food truck, it only took a few months for Fresno business owner Janel Haas to have her first break-in, losing out on thousands of dollars of ice cream and merchandise.

Haas, the owner of Jay’s Specialty Ice Cream, awoke at 4 a.m. Monday to an alert from her security cameras telling her of motion at her shop at Shaw and Hayes avenues, she told GV Wire.

The video showed two men walking off with tubs of ice cream after breaking in a window.

“Thankfully, on my security system, I have the ability to talk into the camera. And I did,” Haas said. “I yelled. I said, ‘get out, I see you! Get out!’ ”

The two thieves left, but not before taking mugs, t-shirts, hats, and four tubs of ice cream.

“It was not a great way to wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning,” Haas said.

Insurance Could Drop Haas for Making a Claim

Haas said they could have left with much more. The milkshake machines and waffle-cone makers are expensive items, not to mention the now-broken glass. Video from the nearby gas station shows the duo touring the businesses and construction sites at the corner of Shaw and Hayes with a crowbar.

She estimates about $2,000 in losses. While not a lot for many, she said it still impacts her as a small business — especially in her slow season. What’s more is the impact on her insurance.

After consulting with her insurance agent she said filing the claim could cost her when her policy expires in April. Her agent told her when that happens it will make it very difficult to get a policy at all because of the claim, she said.

“The sad reality is like, then why do I pay for insurance?” Haas said.

Haas Did Not Want to Be Told ‘No’

October marked her 13th year in business. Before the storefront, which she opened in September, Haas operated out of food trucks, a regular at Gazebo Gardens, Fresno State’s Vintage Days, and at school carnivals and football games.

Opening a brick-and-mortar has always been part of her plan, and for the past several years she’s been looking at locations. She finally found the location at 5985 W. Shaw Ave., spending a year-and-a-half to go through the permitting and opening processes.

She still operates her food truck.

Haas got the inspiration to start her business after her senior project at Fresno State involved ice cream.

“Then my professor happened to tell me that no one would ever follow me around in my mom van, and I was like, ‘OK, the fact that you just told me ‘no,’ that I cannot do it makes me really want to do it more,'” she said.

Since then, she’s built a following, especially around her “Oreo Delight” flavor. Her banana-and-Nilla-wafer-cookie ice cream sells well, as does her salted caramel, she said.

“There are also other costs that nobody sees that we have to take care of and cover. And until you’re a business owner, you don’t really know that,” Haas said. “So the little things that happen, that little dig, they hurt sometimes.”