Back in business and thankful, Colorado restaurant that experienced shooting next door reopens

A sushi restaurant in the Colorado foothills is back in business thanks to the local community's help. It's located next door to a medical clinic, which was the scene of a shooting last month.

Sushi Win restaurant in Evergreen is a three-person operation, and the original owners, immigrants from Vietnam and Burma, work the kitchen. A couple of years ago, they turned over the ownership of the restaurant to their first-generation American son, Ryan Win.

"I'm so proud of my parents because they brought all the customers to hide," Win shared.

The day of the shooting at the medical clinic next door to the restaurant is going to stay with them.

"It was completely heartbreaking, and I'm not here to point fingers or say anyone was at fault, but at the end of the day, what happened was a really sad moment," said Win.

Sixty-two-year-old Lance Black, reportedly upset about continued medical problems, burst into the Common Spirit Primary Care facility in Evergreen on February 12 and fired 19 shotgun rounds. Workers there hid while Black continued firing before taking his own life. No one else was injured.

"It was an absolute miracle, and I'm forever thankful for that every single day," Win added, thankful that there were no other injuries. 

That day, he heard commotion outside the restaurant and peeked his head out to look. He saw what appeared to be the shooter's foot as Lance Black climbed through a shattered window. Win looked down and saw a shotgun shell. It was then that he knew it was a shooting.

He got people inside the restaurant and locked the door. They could hear the gunshots. Soon, he would try to get downstairs to his pickup to retrieve a gun from his vehicle's gun safe.

"When I was running down to the truck, there were pedestrians walking their dogs. I was yelling at them, telling them, 'Get out of here, guys, there's an active shooter,'" Win recalled. He ran back up to the restaurant and locked the door.

Black would take his own life. Deputies trying to clear the scene attempted to get into other businesses and broke a large window on the front of the restaurant. Inside, surveillance footage showed customers holding their hands up. Authorities had customers get out. Inside still was the daughter of one of the customers, whom Win found in the back and carried out. It may be one of his strongest memories.

"I said, 'Come on, sweetie, let's get out of here,' and the very moment she heard my voice, she immediately went to grab onto me so I could carry her out. And the way she held onto me told me enough, that no child should ever have to go through that," Win recalled.

In the weeks that have followed, boarded up windows serve as a reminder of the crisis. Repairs have been slow, and Win is waiting for the landlord to get the repairs done. His own insurance company would provide only one day of lost business coverage, suggesting to him that once the crime scene tape was down, he should have reopened.

"Sure, I could have opened immediately. But at the end of the day, I wanted to give the community the respect that it deserved because it had already been through so much trauma," he said, referencing the stress from the Evergreen High School shooting in September.

Instead, they took some time off. Win started an online fundraising campaign to cover some of the rent, salaries, and other bills, and to make up for the money and food they lost. In recent days, they've opened again to customers for to-go meals.  But if they're more in the mood to sit, he's serving those customers too. A large board remains over a window, allowing outside air to leak in.

Win sits and thanks the community where they've done business for over a dozen years. He recalled how the support of people he's come to know helped them.

"Seeing the names of my regular patrons that come to support me and giving me phone calls and checking in on me, that was one of the best things I've ever experienced in my life. Because it showed how the community cared," he explained. "It was completely humbling to the core that the community jumped up so quickly in the way that it did, and I'm forever grateful."