09/15/2026
Today, I am sharing something very different.
This is not about a new menu.
Not about a special dish.
Not about food.
This is something extremely difficult and emotional for me to write.
Over the past few months, our family and everyone at LORD have been going through an emotional turmoil that is difficult to put into words.
We reopened LORD in May with everything we had — our time, our savings, our hard work, our hopes and our dreams.
This restaurant is not just a business to us. It represents years of sacrifice and the hope of building something for our family and for the community.
But for the past few months, we have repeatedly found our property vandalized — after our customers have gone home, while we are still working inside, or after we have closed for the night.
Our patio-light wires have been repeatedly cut.
Our car has been egged.
Our restaurant has been egged.
Our property has been damaged and disturbed in other ways.
And then, almost every morning, we come in and see what happened during the night.
Imagine putting your heart into something every single day, only to wake up wondering what has been damaged this time.
What hurts even more is that this feels personal.
It feels like we are being targeted, rather than this simply being random damage to a property.
I have lived in this country for more than a decade.
Canada has given me and my family so much, and every day we try to give back in our own small way — by working hard, serving our community, creating jobs, supporting local causes and simply trying to build a good life for our family.
We came here to work.
We came here to contribute.
We came here to build something.
Is that really something wrong?
Sometimes I find myself asking a much more painful question:
Are we safe simply being who we are?
I don't know who is doing this or exactly why. I don't want to make assumptions.
But when something happens again and again, it becomes very difficult not to wonder whether we are being targeted because of who we are or where we come from.
And honestly, it hurts.
It hurts as a business owner.
It hurts as a husband.
It hurts as a father.
And it hurts as someone who genuinely believes in this community and this country.
We are incredibly grateful to the Waterloo Regional Police Service, the City of Waterloo, and the media — especially CTV Kitchener — for standing beside us and taking this seriously.
But most of all, we want to thank our friends, our customers, our neighbours and every single person who has reached out to us, supported us, shared our story, checked on us, or simply said:
“We are with you.”
You may never know how much those words mean to us right now.
We are tired.
We are hurt.
We are scared at times.
But we are still here.
We will continue to open our doors.
We will continue to cook.
We will continue to serve.
And we will continue to believe in the community that has supported us.
LORD is more than a restaurant to us.
It is our dream, our livelihood and a piece of our family.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
And thank you — from the bottom of our hearts — for continuing to stand beside LORD during one of the most difficult chapters we have ever faced.
❤️ Please keep us in your thoughts, and please continue to support local businesses.
— The LORD Family
