Pop-up Restaurant Owner Forced to Pause Her Life Following Home Break-in

Phoeun Pen was at work saving lives when someone walked into her home and destroyed her son’s.

She was on shift as a patient coordinator at a local hospital that Monday morning. Her 16-year-old son was home, asleep. She had no reason to think anything was wrong.

She came back to a ransacked house, cash and jewelry stolen, and a son who will never forget what happened to him while she was gone.

She Came Home to a Nightmare

The intruder didn’t just rob the house. Before leaving, he sexually assaulted Pen’s teenage son, who was asleep at the time.

“It’s something we can’t repair mentally,” Pen told KTVU. “I didn’t expect this to happen to my son at all.”

Her son, a friend in the next room, and a neighbor all chased the suspect out the front door. They stopped when he indicated he might be armed. OPD now has video footage of him fleeing. No arrest has been made.

“As a mother, you want to protect your child,” Pen said. “I feel like I didn’t do my job that day.”

She did nothing wrong. She was at work.

The Dream She Was Building

Pen has lived in Oakland her whole life. Last October, she started Kathiew House out of her backyard, cooking Cambodian beef noodle soup using a recipe her late father created. It wasn’t just a business. It was a way of keeping him alive.

She expanded to weekly pop-ups in an Oakland parking lot. Every weekend, she sold out. Over 500 people came through, many tasting Cambodian food for the first time.

“Food is my love language,” she said. “When I see people devouring the food I cook, I feel good.”

Her next goal was a permanent location. She had survived a forced closure before, when Alameda County shut down her backyard operation. She rebuilt. She kept going.

Until this.

Why This Matters

Oakland has made real progress. Burglaries dropped 54% in Q1 2026 compared to last year, per OPD. Violent crime is down 22%. Homicides hit their lowest count since 1967.

But stats don’t capture what happens when a working mother leaves for an early shift and her son is home alone. Daytime break-ins target exactly that window. Burglars know when houses go quiet.

Just recently, a 74-year-old Gastonia homeowner had to shoot a burglar through his own window because no one came in time. For small business owners building from scratch in underserved neighborhoods, one incident like this can erase years of work in a single morning.

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A Business Paused. A Family Healing.

Kathiew House is closed. No timeline, no date.

“When my son heals,” Pen said, when asked about reopening. “To be honest with you, I don’t even want to be in this house. It’s just bad feelings.”

What happened here follows a pattern seen in cities everywhere. In a Brooklyn Park case, a home invader broke into two homes in one week and sexually assaulted women inside. These aren’t impulsive crimes. They’re calculated. And the damage outlasts any insurance payout.

The community has shown up for Pen. Messages from across the Bay Area have been pouring in.

“Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart that everyone here in the community, near and far, was able to contact me that they’re here for me,” she said.

That means something. But it doesn’t undo what her son went through.

Key Takeaways

• Teenagers home alone during the day are an overlooked target for daytime burglaries
• Home invasions cause psychological damage that outlasts any physical loss
• Small business owners in high-crime areas absorb the biggest cost with the least support
• Preparedness matters before an incident, not after

This breakdown from a Lafayette home invasion case covers what every homeowner should be thinking about right now.

The Work Isn’t Done

Oakland is making progress. The numbers show it. But progress in a spreadsheet doesn’t protect a teenager asleep in his own bedroom on a Monday morning.

If you have information about this case, contact the Oakland Police Department’s Robbery Section at 510-238-3326.

Has a crime like this ever affected you or someone close to you? Share your experience in the comments. Sometimes the most useful thing a story can do is remind someone they’re not alone.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only, based on publicly available reporting. Build Like New does not independently verify police reports or legal proceedings.