Today we are publishing the fourth in a four-part series written by students at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism. They spent the past semester digging into one of Chapel Hill’s great mysteries: What happened to Que Chula’s chairs? You can read part one and part two and part three here.
By: Samantha Chavis and Drew Bloom
The community in Chapel Hill and on the UNC campus has responded in various ways to the ongoing theft of chairs from Que Chula, a Mexican restaurant on Franklin St, raising questions about civic responsibility and how residents should respond when crime affects local businesses.
Since its opening in 2020, more than four chair thefts have occurred. Previous occurrences of chair theft include October 2021, January 2022, October 2024, and November 2024.
Over time, the community’s reaction has dimmed, along with the reaction of the owners.
After the first robbery, the restaurant’s owners, the married couple Laurena Ibarra and José Ramirez, initially took bold action.
“We did [offer] a reward for $400 and then they showed up two days later,” Ramirez recalled.
Following that first theft, the restaurant saw an increase in business, Ramirez said. Students from UNC also tried to help.
“One student brought a chair from another restaurant– and I was like, I’ll take it,” Ramirez said. “I don’t know where it’s from, but we’ll keep it.”
After the third theft of chairs, patrons began asking why they weren’t locked up.
So Ramirez tried. But despite their efforts to use metal chains, theft and vandalization of the seats still occurred. Thieves slashed through the chair’s woven strands of plastic.
After the October 2024 theft, the business posted to their Instagram account with a playful “wanted” graphic displaying the chairs in an old Western-style sheriff poster, keeping a light-hearted tone while sharing their distress over the incident.
They also posted a picture from surveillance tape, but covered the suspect’s face with an emoji to protect their identity.
The bottom of the graphic read, REWARD: TACOS!
Yet the tone of the post drew some criticism.
“It looks like a meme,” said Izel Bernal, a first year student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), suggesting the post undermined the seriousness of the situation.
Valerie Fields, a professor at UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media, weighed in.
“Businesses tend to be most successful when they communicate in their authentic brand voice,” she said, “meaning they’re not using a particular situation as a publicity stunt, but they are communicating sincere concern or expressing whatever the reality is of what’s occurring.”
She noted that social media provides more access for people to get stories out to a larger audience, but that communicating in a way that focuses on genuine connection with its audience is critical for small businesses.
When asked why the community hasn’t reacted to the incident with more concern, she said other stressors such as the election and financial pressures likely take precedent in people’s lives over the theft of chairs.
Brian Vankey, a Carborro resident, seemed to reflect the opinion of many other residents in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community.
“I’ll be honest, of the thefts out there, I don’t think it’s the biggest one,” said Vankey. “Yeah, people are getting cars stolen and things like that. So I think it makes sense that priorities aren’t around that.”
Orange County resident Alex Breiholz shared that this incident could reflect larger issues in Chapel Hill, like the growing population of unhoused people, or it might just be a result of drunk college students.
“Homelessness is a big issue that I know because they closed down the homeless shelter, I think, a year or so ago,” she said. “Maybe they should have a no questions asked [policy] if you bring them back.”
Students at UNC-Chapel Hill live less than a mile away from the scene of the crime. At apartments like C Square and Granville Towers, Que Chula is so close that it can be seen out of dorm windows.
Jack Goldstein, a junior from Chicago, said that if the greater university community was acting “the right way as a whole,” then the chairs wouldn’t have been stolen.
“We need to remind the community to not steal from each other,” he said, explaining how it’s the responsibility of individuals to stop theft because these establishments support the community.
“These are moments everyone needs to have to realize that stealing is bad,” said Goldstein, recalling an incident when he stopped his 3-year-old sister from stealing a Hershey Kiss from CVS. “In Chicago, local businesses get robbed every day.”
To him, it seems crucial to build strong relationships with police and use high quality security cameras to limit theft. Goldstein also pointed out the role individuals can play. “I can stop a theft if I see it happening,” he said. “I’m going to remind people to keep an eye out and be aware. It’s my civic duty to stop crime, and the community as a whole, especially from local businesses because they help us, so we should help them.”
Ty Thompson, a sophomore from Charlotte, also believes that it’s the community’s responsibility to prevent crime.
“You can report stuff when you see it,” said Thompson. “If I saw someone steal a chair from Que Chula, I would report it.” But taking any action beyond that, he said, should be left to the authorities.
“It’s not my product being stolen,” Thompson elaborated. “What if the robber is armed and dangerous? It’s the police’s job– not mine.”
From the very first chair theft in October 2021 up until the most recent this past November 2024, the reaction from the larger Chapel Hill community has dimmed. Despite the challenges, Que Chula’s owners continue to take pride in serving the Chapel Hill community, though their expectations around what would happen next have become dim.
“I think she just gave up,” said Ramirez, in reference to his wife and co-owner. “She was like, ‘What do we do now?’”
The answer, like the location of the missing chairs, wasn’t clear.