It’s been just over a week since the attack on Run for Their Lives demonstrators on Pearl Street. There are shoppers and walkers strolling the bricks and diners eating al fresco in the early summer sunshine.
“I’m so happy to see that it’s back to normal,” said Avner Gilady, owner of Falafel King, whose business of 45 years is right across the mall from the site of the incident. “A week later, totally back to normal.”
It’s a far cry from the evacuated, closed-down blocks in the wake of the June 1 violence. Sanjay Nazir was dishing up dumplings at Chiri’s Momo Delight when he saw flames go up after a man reportedly threw two Molotov cocktails into the group advocating for the release of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
Nazir immediately ran to the scene in front of the courthouse with a water jug in hand to help those who had been burned.
“I’m a human. Anybody will do it,” he said. “I’m not like a hero or something; that’s what we do. We are part of this community. Here, we make great business. Here, we love Boulder.”
Chiri’s didn’t reopen until the Tuesday after the attack.
“Everything was here,” Nazir, who co-owns the dumpling cart, said. “We lost business, merchandise. Food was spoiled.”
Pearl Street’s return to normalcy took time, business owners said.
“It’s just a wide range of emotions,” said Chance Kraegel, Peppercorn VP. “I mean, some people came in like nothing ever happened. Other people, I had various employees have to take multiple days off of that entire first week. I think there was a balance of fear, frustration and ambivalence as well.”
“It was just this big shock and awe, and then everyone just kind of go back to normal as best as you can.”
Lindsay Shaw, owner of Lindsay’s Deli, said she and other restaurant owners saw a slow week following the attack.
“A lot of us were down [business-wise] this past week,” Shaw said, after coming from a meeting with a coalition of restaurant owners. “And we were wondering, was it what happened on Sunday? But was it also weather? Was it also the beginning of tourist season? So we couldn’t really pinpoint what it was.”
Although business is picking back up this week along with the weather, Shaw said she and other restaurant owners from the coalition want to see an increased police presence on the mall “for people to feel safer.”
Shaw, who is Jewish, said she attended the Jewish Festival on Pearl Street over the weekend, which saw a turnout of thousands of people exactly a week after the attack.
“There were SWAT teams, there was so much protection and security here,” Shaw said. “You felt really safe, but it also felt slightly bizarre, because you just aren’t used to seeing SWAT teams on the mall.”
The JCC announced ahead of the festival that the event would be “reimagined” to center Run for Their Lives and “bring increased awareness to the hostages still held in Gaza, while making space to recognize the survivors of Sunday’s attack.”
Of the 251 hostages taken, 58 are still being held, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Some 1,195 Israelis were killed. Israel’s subsequent military campaign has killed 54,084 Palestinians as of May 28.
Gilady of Falafel King, who is from Israel and sometimes joined the Run for Their Lives demonstrators, said his shop was “overwhelmed” during the festival.
As a Jewish business owner, Shaw said she’s feeling especially supported.
“Jewish people in particular, just because that is my community, have been super supportive of the business,” she said. “They’ve been reaching out. They’ve been trying to shop here. They’ve been looking out, you know, wondering how I was doing, and so that’s been just kind of an interesting piece of it to watch that community come together.”
The attacker, Mohamed Soliman, now faces over 100 charges, including attempted murder, assault and a federal hate crime. A preliminary hearing is set for July 15.