Commodore Roberts (inset) , 55, of the 4900 block of West Jackson Boulevard, faces five felony counts of armed robbery for holding up Maxwell Street Cicero five times, police say. Pictured is owner Joseph Alcantar (l.) and his nephew, Jaime Alcantar. View Full Caption Chicago Police Department/DNAinfo Chicago

AUSTIN — A man accused of robbing a West Side hot dog stand so often that customers came to expect it was charged over the weekend.

Police say Commodore Roberts, 55, robbed Maxwell Street Cicero, 234 S. Cicero Ave., at gunpoint five times since May 12.

Roberts, of the 4900 block of West Jackson Boulevard, faces five felony counts of armed robbery, police said.

Police said they identified Roberts and tracked him down after watching surveillance videos of the robberies.

Before the arrest, the holdups were coming so often that the restaurant's customers started to treat them as normal, said Joseph Alcantar, the owner of Maxwell Street Cicero.

"The guy comes, takes out his gun, and everyone just steps to the side," Alcantar said. "Once he's done, everyone just gets back in line and waits for their food."

Police say Commodore Roberts, 55, robbed Maxwell Street Cicero, 234 S. Cicero Ave., at gunpoint five times since May 12. View Full Caption Google Earth

According to Chicago Police, the man walked up to the street-facing window, flashed a silver revolver and demanded the cashier empty the register at:

• 12:40 a.m. May 12

• 12:30 a.m. May 18

• 4:10 a.m. Sunday

• 2:04 a.m. Thursday

• A later unspecified time

Each time, the man rolled up on a bicycle — sometimes with a woman at his side — and sped off into the darkness long before police could tell what happened, according to Joseph Alcantar, the owner of Maxwell Street Cicero. The last robbery, early Thursday morning, happened hours after Alcantar installed a silent alarm system, he said.

"The police didn't even show up until 10 or 12 minutes after it happened, and by that time, there was nothing to see," Alcantar told DNAinfo before Roberts was arrested. "So now we just have to go back and wait for it to happen again."

The cashiers don't keep much money in their registers at any one time, he said, so the robber only made off with a few hundred dollars. But the new security measures Alcantar's been forced to take are seriously eating into his profit, he said.

"We've got cameras, the silent alarm. Now we're hiring a security guard, so hopefully that'll scare him away," Alcantar said. "But we're talking about some serious costs being incurred here."

He's considering investing in bulletproof glass, but it's a step employees are reluctant to take. Since Alcantar opened the stand in 2002, he said, he's prided himself on the face-to-face service customers can expect at the window.

But "everything's changed since then," he added. "It's gotten so much more violent. Just panhandlers and dope dealers everywhere. No one's got any respect out here."

"Now my guys are just going to work every night praying they make it till morning without a gun being pointed at them," he said.

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