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Handwritten diary containing family recipes stolen from Culver City restaurant

Culver City restaurant franticly searching for stolen handwritten diary
Culver City restaurant frantically searching for stolen handwritten diary 02:27

The owners of Pasta Sisters are pleading for help after thieves stole their safe, which stored their grandmother's handwritten diary.

"As soon as I saw the safe not being there my mind went straight to the diary," said Co-owner Giorgia Sinatra. 

Her late grandmother's diary was filled with Italian recipes and life lessons, something that meant the world to Sinatra. 

"She was a great cook and she [passed] all her passion for food to my mom and to us," she said. "That is the reason why Pasta Sisters exists."

According to Sinatra, thieves broke into her second location in the Helms Bakery District Complex in Culver City early Sunday morning. Within 20 minutes, the robbers ripped the safe, which was bolted down, out of the ground and walked out with one of her family's most important heirlooms. 

"You can still see all the scratches of the safe," she said. "You can see there, they dragged the safe out and you can see the scratches where they probably had a car."

The irreplaceable diary was the only keepsake given to Sinatra's family after her grandmother's death. 

"We just want the diary," said Sinatra. "My grandma wrote it while she was growing up, and when was young, until she passed away. After she passed away that was the one thing that she left to my mom."

Pasta Sisters is offering a $5,000 reward for the safe return of their grandmother's diary.

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