A tough week for cafe workers at shooting site in Pasco

Friday was a busy day for Vinicio Marin Gomez. He baked 100 heart-shaped shortbread cookies with red jelly and some large heart-shaped chocolate mousse cakes for his first Valentine’s Day as owner of Vinny’s Cafe & Bakery.

He smiles while he works, but it has been a far from normal week in the shop he opened in December at 1107 W. Lewis St.

Antonio Zambrano-Montes, 35, was shot dead by three Pasco police officers Tuesday night outside the front door. Video footage from the incident has been seen more than 900,000 times on YouTube and broadcast repeatedly on national TV.

Marin Gomez wasn’t in the store when Zambrano-Montes was gunned down, but one of his employees, who asked not to be named, saw everything.

She came back to work Friday for the first time since the shooting, and had to go through the back door, she said. She couldn’t handle walking through the front door, past a makeshift memorial and the bullet holes in the wall.

“I can’t sleep, I feel tired all the time,” she said. “I can’t think right. It’s hard for me.”

Vinny’s has become a place for healing. The memorial — burning velas in the shape of a cross, flowers and trinkets — is set up along the front sidewalk, outside the kitchen window, at the site where Zambrano-Montes fell. His family has regularly spent time at Vinny’s, and even met Thursday with Police Chief Bob Metzger in the cafe.

Metzger even bought some baked goods to help Marin Gomez out with his business.

Marin Gomez has been nervous, but calm, he said. The week has been hectic, with TV and newspaper reporters from across the Northwest stopping in, sometimes to file stories. Others don’t have time to spend there, so he meets them at the back door with their orders.

He has learned perseverance, working his way up as a baker for 22 years in Chicago, Denver and Las Vegas before moving to Pasco five years ago. A friend owns the building and helped him land the store, which sells everything from Cuban sandwiches to doughnuts, he said.

“People want me to make good, but it’s been very hard,” he said.

Vinny’s will remain open during Saturday’s rally, even if it gets hectic. Marin Gomez is ready for potentially large crowds.

This story was originally published February 13, 2015 at 7:28 PM with the headline "A tough week for cafe workers at shooting site in Pasco."