Chinese restaurant owner robbed in Raleigh home

The robbery occurred shortly before midnight at a house on Salamander Court in northeast Raleigh.

Three men wearing ski masks and brandishing a gun forced the restaurant owner inside as she arrived home, according to a 911 call.

"She opened the door. As she was walking inside the door, they came up beside her and jumped her. There was no car parked outside. They were hiding," one of her relatives told the 911 dispatcher.

The woman, who owns Wang's Bistro in Zebulon, said she usually carries a gun because she knows that owners of Chinese restaurants have been robbery targets in the past. But the robbers grabbed her gun and used zip-ties to restrain her.

The men punched her and kicked her when she told them that she didn't have the combination to a safe in the home, she said.

"I told them that we do have some cash, but most of the customers pay credit cards," she said Tuesday through an interpreter. "They did not believe me. He said, 'It is impossible that you don't have a lot of cash because you have three stores.'"

During the attack, her husband and son arrived home after closing the family's other two restaurants. They were also zip-tied and assaulted, she said, and the three robbers stole thousands of dollars in cash.

"They kept interrogating us, and we kept telling them and they did not believe us. They search and search," the woman said, noting the robbers repeatedly asked one question: "You want the money, or you want to live? You want money, or you want to live?"

The relative told the 911 dispatcher that one of the robbers said, "A close friend told us to come here." But the relative added, "I don't know if he was lying, trying to mislead, or if it was true."

The family suffered only minor injuries during the robbery, and they said they felt lucky.

Raleigh police have no suspects in Monday night's robbery.

The relative gave vague descriptions of the three robbers to the 911 dispatcher, noting they all spoke Spanish and broken English and were all about 6 feet tall. Two wore gray hooded sweatshirts, and a third wore a red-and-yellow striped shirt.