Big-hearted Barossa Valley Brewing in South Australia has been celebrated for its benevolent response to a break in at the brewery.

The break in at the Tununda brewpub happened earlier this week and founder Denham D’Silva said it was the first time they’d had an incident like it.

“The night before, it was relatively innocuous. I was here pretty late the night before, until about 9.00pm, but someone came in after, picked up a chair from the deck outside and smashed the window and opened the door,” he explained.

”Every single business has to deal with break ins, especially restaurants with alcohol around, but this was the first time we’ve had a break in in 15 years.”

Thankfully, the damage was limited, D’Silva explained.

“When we came in and realised, we called the police and actually very little was taken.

“We were in the middle of doing a painting, everything was off the walls in piles so we haven’t done a proper stock take yet but it was very little from what we can see.

“The police said it was opportunistic, that they hoped there was easy cash around the place but they probably saw the cameras, and left pretty quickly.”

It was the response of Barossa Valley to the situation which turned heads online after they posted to Facebook.

In the post, Barossa said it would start a programme in which the restaurant team prepares food for free on Wednesdays for the community.

“After it happened I was dropping my kid off at school and he was a bit panicked, and I think when you are forced to put the father hat on it makes you take a step back and go, how would I want him to respond to this? You need to look at the root cause and address that – what’s the solution?

“An alarm system, maybe! But if we can create an environment that’s less stressful then maybe that’s the best way to deal with this.

“We’re living in uncertain times, people are stressing out, not everyone is reacting in the way that’s helpful, though most people are.

“So with this we kill two birds with one stone. We’re a restaurant and we have food that isn’t going to last until next weekend, and there’s only so much we can eat, so maybe this is something we can do.”

D’Silva said they were overwhelmed with the response following the social media post.

“The business impact of the break in was really very little but the outpouring has been amazing.

“We popped it up on impulse, so people know to pop in next Wednesday, and I was really surprised at the response,” he said.

“Even literally seconds after I posted it, we had comments coming through.

“I’ve moved around a lot and lived in 11 countries, including places like Hong Kong, Chicago and New York – places where this happens regularly.

“But we’re really lucky – Barossa is a safe environment, and everyone needs to do their little bit to ensure it’s protected and stays that way for as long as possible.”