Westminster chef fights off man trying to steal food

ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. - A local chef turns the tables against a man trying to steal food from her business.

In a security video obtained by FOX 11, you can see a man targeting the Westminster restaurant called Prepped With Love. The suspect is seen gunning for the refrigerators, where the restaurant had food prepped for the business' catering clients.

The chef warned the man the restaurant was closed and used a table to keep him away from the food. The man pushed back, grabbing trays of food and pelting the chef's daughter with the food he tried to steal.

"It was just an adrenaline rush and we were just reacting," Chef Carol Garnier explained. "We didn't know what we what was happening. Honestly, we knew that somebody was in our restaurant trying to grab meals and all of those meals take, you know, three days of prep work and a lot of endless hours of packing and weighing out each ingredient for our clients. So seeing him grab them and then falling onto the floor. To me, that means just starting all over and clients were on their way to pick up their meals."

After the man left, the chef called the police.

Westminster police told her they recognized the man and are looking for him. He remains on the run. 

The chef said she would have given him something to eat had he asked.