A Warriewood break-in in the early hours of Tuesday, 1 September left local business owners shaken and out of pocket, as part of a wider overnight crime spree that struck multiple Northern Beaches shops between roughly 2 am and 2.30 am.
Two businesses on Garden Street — Liquor IGA and the long-running café Eleven11 — were targeted by what police believe were the same two suspects responsible for a similar attack on Porters Liquor in Balgowlah around half an hour earlier. In all cases, the offenders used blunt force to smash through the front entrances before making off with alcohol and cash.
At Eleven11, owner Peter Cosentino — who has run the café for more than ten years — arrived to find his point-of-sale register torn from the wall and taken, along with damage to the surrounding equipment and a shattered front entry. Next door, Liquor IGA store manager Deon Epplett said around eight bottles of vodka were taken from the shelves, with the offenders captured on CCTV filling a shopping basket before struggling to squeeze it back out through the hole they had made in the glass door.
Police confirmed the pair are believed to have been travelling in a vehicle stolen from Forestville, and that the same two suspects were observed at between five and seven premises that morning. Detectives and forensic officers attended both the Balgowlah and Warriewood scenes, and police indicated that fingerprints may have been recovered from the Balgowlah location, where one of the suspects was not wearing gloves.
Both businesses on Garden Street have remained open. Cosentino and Epplett said the response from their regulars in the days following made a difficult situation easier to bear, with customers expressing sympathy and continuing to show up in support.
The break-ins represent an escalation from the pattern of opportunistic, in-hours theft from bottle shops that has been observed across the Northern Beaches over the past year. Police had previously characterised young car thieves in the area as unlikely to force entry into locked premises — a characterisation this incident appears to have upended.
The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information, including dashcam footage from the Balgowlah or Warriewood areas around the time of the incidents, is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or via the Crime Stoppers website.
Published 4-September-2026
