Of the scores of "Cool Spots" all across Belize, we'd like to think that "Rob's Cool Spot" just outside Hattieville is among the most well liked. And that's because the owner, 61 year old Robert Robinson wakes up early every morning and gets on his fire hearth going to prepare delicious Rice and Beans with other local delicacies. By the evening, he's winding down - and on New Year's Eve at 6:00 pm, that's when 2 men tried to rob him. Monica Bodden found out more when she went to meet "Rob" at mile 17 today:...
Monica Bodden reporting
Robert Robinson has been making fire hearth food at his restaurant Robs Cool Spot for four decades. But on New Year's Eve at 6:00 in the evening, as he sat at his usual lookout, two armed men came looking not for food but money.
Robert Robinson - Business Owner, Rob's Cool Spot
"Two guys just pull up from around the corner and I didn't see them. When I look through here I saw one with a gun and the other came with a machete. The machete man chopped, but I wasn't sure if it was a chop I got. I thought it was a stick, but when I feel the coldness of the shirt, I lifted up my arm and I saw the chop. I then yelled for my wife and the men turn around and ran."
Monica Bodden
"What did they demanded from you?"
Robert Robinson - Business Owner, Rob's Cool Spot
"The guy with the gun said "gimme all you got.""
Monica Bodden
"Did you hand anything over to any of them?"
Robert Robinson - Business Owner, Rob's Cool Spot
[Nodded] "No."
Jules Vasquez
"Were you afraid?"
Robert Robinson - Business Owner, Rob's Cool Spot
"No because she (the wife) was with me at the time. It was after I got the chop and I started to bleed, then I got coward and started to tremble."
The encounter left him with a chop mark on his hand but he says he's not afraid - even though this is the second time he's being targeted by the same robber:
Robert Robinson - Business Owner, Rob's Cool Spot
"The one that came with the gun came after me before by the back door, but it seems as if though the gun didn't have any bullets, so I yelled at him three times and he ran. Moreover I had a machete in my hand at the same time."
Monica Bodden
"You think they might come back?"
Robert Robinson - Business Owner, Rob's Cool Spot
"I don't know. I don't think so."
Jules Vasquez
"Will you arm yourself or anything like that? Will you change how you do business?"
Robert Robinson - Business Owner, Rob's Cool Spot
"I don't think so either. I have a solemn belief in the Lord, so I beg him to protect me."
Hattieville police have made no arrests.
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