A bar has been targeted multiple times this week in the River West neighborhood. 

New surveillance video shows a robbery and an assault inside while the bar was open.

The two robberies have happened with customers inside the Dandy Crown bar and restaurant on Milwaukee Avenue over just the past three days, and the owner said they've been victims of break-ins before.

In the first robbery that happened late Monday night, surveillance video from inside the bar shows a masked man walking in. The owner said a masked man told the bartender he had a knife. When he finds there's nothing to take from the register, he takes the purses and phones of the bartender and another woman sitting at the bar before he leaves.

The second robbery was more violent.

It happened Wednesday night, just after 8 p.m. Footage showed a man in all black and a baseball cap walking into the bar. At first, he's on his phone and told the bartender he's waiting for a friend. Eventually, he starts going through an employee's purse.

As she tries to get her things back, the man grabs her leg and flips her over a chair before running out.

Pony Lawson, a neighbor and a regular at Dandy Crown, tried to chase after the robber.

"We get downstairs, we see a guy running outside, so we try to chase after him, and he's parked right across the street. So we're trying to stop traffic and run after the guy, and he tried to run us over."

He said he was upstairs playing pool when the sound of a crash alerted him that something was wrong in Dandy Crown.

"They're super-nice people. They're some of the best people that I know, and it just sucks that they have to deal with it," he said.

Police are investigating both robberies, and no arrests have been made.

Dandy Crown was closed on Thursday. 

The owners said staff and customer safety are a top priority, so they are going to implement their own security measures. They also said they feel more needs to be done by the city of Chicago, because small businesses "continue to suffer daily."

Owners said Dandy Crown also has been the victim of five break-ins since 2023.