Jessica Bliss

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

It was mid-morning Sunday when Joey Molteni unlocked the front door of Dino's dive bar in East Nashville and he knew right away something was wrong.

Scattered across the floor were dismantled pieces of an ATM machine, snippets of black wires and cables, and even chunks of wall.

"There was a bunch of stuff laying on the ground that didn't make a whole lot of sense," said Molteni, who works as the bar's kitchen manager.

The bar had been burgled.

Molteni called the police and walked around to piece together what happened. The official police report was not available Sunday, but here's what Molteni saw.

The back gate to the place had been forced open, with its swinging door taken off the hinge. Someone took the effort to cut wires to the phone, cable, and back security camera had been cut, severing communication lines. The back entrance, locked from the inside with a security bar, was forced open leaving a gash in the wall where the metal was ripped off.

Inside, all things that may have contained money had been vandalized and robbed. The jukebox was splintered open. The table-top arcade game located in one of the booths, which takes money to play, was ripped apart. The ATM machine just inside the door was torn to pieces. The bottom of it, which had the cash inside, was gone. Its top like shrapnel across the floor.

Two small safes had been taken, with the security camera usually mounted nearby also dismantled.

The cash register drawer, now empty, lay discarded on the floor in the kitchen prep area.

When Molteni went to put in the alarm code, he saw the white box dangling from the wall.

"Someone spent a lot of time scoping it out," Molteni said.

With the police investigating, Molteni didn't want to say exactly how much the bar had lost. The ATM and jukebox are owned by someone else, he said. Dino's lost property included the two safes and the cash in the register.

Police came and dusted for fingerprints.

Dino's opened around 5 p.m. — five hours later than it normally would on a Sunday — running on a cash-only basis since its systems were down.

It was a little darker inside than usual on Sunday night, the light from the jukebox no longer illuminated the wood-paneled space decorated with Christmas lights and a spinning disco ball. But, with the grill still sizzling, the space smelled of the greasy goodness of burgers and fries.

At the counter, Jack Stephens drank a beer and chatted with the bartender.

He lives in the neighborhood and had come down to watch the Steelers play the Chiefs in the NFL playoffs.

Without its cables intact, Dino's TV remained dark.

That didn't turn Stephens away.

"Out of solidarity," he said. "I'm staying for a Shiner."

Reach Jessica Bliss at 615-259-8253 and on Twitter @jlbliss.