The first time that masked men came to rob his bakery in Northwest Washington, they beat an employee unconscious but left with nothing, “not even a loaf of bread,” the master baker and owner of Bread Furst managed to joke.

A month later, two masked men came again, and that time they left with $1,500 stuffed into the pockets of their pants and coats. They got to the Connecticut Avenue store 30 minutes after it closed, just as a worker was counting money in an upstairs office.

The two incidents in January and February are probably linked, 77-year-old proprietor Mark Furstenberg said, perhaps set up by a disgruntled former employee. He said he is frustrated by D.C. police, who he thinks are not acting with appropriate urgency. “The police have given us no reason to believe that they’re treating this as an important matter,” he said.

[Robbers escaped with nothing, ‘Not even a loaf of bread’]

There is concern along the busy stretch of Connecticut Avenue that runs past Bread Furst, the Van Ness Metro station and the University of the District of Columbia. As of Sunday, authorities this year reported three robberies with guns and two unarmed robberies in the patrol area that includes the Cleveland Park, North Cleveland Park and Forest Hills neighborhoods. There were none in that area in the first two months of 2015, according to police statistics, and 14 robberies for all of last year. In the District, robberies are up 40 percent this year over last.

“Certainly we’re concerned about crime in the area and about the recent robberies at Bread Furst and other incidents,” said Malachy Nugent, a local Advisory Neighborhood Commission representative. “We’ve reached out to police and are in conversations with them right now about what their response has been, what it should be and what it will be going forward.”

[Master bread maker opens new shop in Van Ness]

The biggest problems last year were car break-ins and property crime, Nugent said. He thinks the neighborhood best known for the university is growing with new residents and businesses — and gaining more attention for opportunistic criminals.

“Van Ness is developing quickly in a really positive direction,” Nugent said. But, he said, if it is true that the robberies at Furst are “linked to a former employee, that means it’s specific to that location and not emblematic of a larger trend.”

D.C. police Cmdr. Melvin Gresham, who heads the 2nd District station that includes the area around the Van Ness station, said Thursday that detectives are pursuing leads in the bakery incidents and have a person of interest in a third incident — an armed robbery — which he said was of a taxi driver.

Gresham would not discuss specifics of the Bread Furst cases, but he said that detectives have provided updates to bakery representatives. “We treat all cases seriously,” Gresham said. Furstenberg said that one of his store managers got an email from a detective describing leads.

Robberies have been a troublesome issue in the District in recent years. In January, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier launched a task force along with Metro police and federal prosecutors to target people committing robbery sprees. During a Thursday award ceremony, Lanier hailed work done by a newly formed criminal interdiction unit, which along with seizing guns and targeting drug dealers is working with robbery squads. The chief said undercover officers are mingling in crowds to intercept people about to rob others.

[Bread Furst employee knocked unconscious in robbery]

Furstenberg opened Bread Furst in 2014 in what might seem an odd spot for an upscale bakery selling $7 loaves with dark, caramelized crusts in a small shop wedged between a seven-story apartment building and a carwash. The store shares a street with a fast-food restaurant, a hotel and a dry cleaner.

The chef, twice nominated for a coveted James Beard award, said he searched for two years for the right spot, rejecting Dupont Circle, Chevy Chase and Adams Morgan. His spot in North Cleveland Park had parking and patrons familiar with the Marvelous Market he had opened just up the street in 1990.

In 27 years of running various businesses in the District, Furstenberg said he had never been robbed before January. “I think we are being targeted,” he said, adding that he is disappointed with police who he feels have not acted quickly enough on leads he has provided. “I don’t know whether I’m an institution in this city, but I’m very committed to this city. And I’d like to think the city government is as committed to me.”

The bakery was first hit by would-be robbers on Jan. 19 around 12:30 p.m. Police said two masked men, one with a gun, got in through a back door, which is also used by customers, and went to an upstairs office. There, police said, one of he men said to an employee, “Y’all know who the f--- this is, give me the money.” The man was unable to open the safe, police said, and the gunman hit him in the head, which Furstenberg said caused a wound that took more than a dozen stitches to close.

[Routines altered amid robbery spree]

Police said the bakery was then robbed on Feb. 26. Two masked men, one with a gun, got in at 7:30 p.m., a half-hour after closing, entering through the back door, which was left unlocked as a worker stocked inventory from a rear storage shed.

The men went upstairs to the office where a worker was counting money. Police said the assailant pointed his gun at the employee and said, “Don’t move.” The man grabbed $1,500 and ran away, according to a police report.

Furstenberg said on the morning of the first incident, a former employee had called, asking for two workers. He thought that she was seeking a tax document, but then, he thought, “she was calling to see if one of the two people who could open the safe were there.” She was told that one of the people she asked about started at noon. The robbers showed up at 12:30 p.m.

The baker said he gave police the ex-employee’s name, and that they had a picture of a potential suspect from a surveillance camera at the adjacent carwash. But he said a detective was showing people the wrong photo during a follow-up investigation. He said the two groups of robbers appeared to be different, but he thinks that the crimes are connected and that the robbers knew the location of the hidden safe.

Furstenberg said his staff “is understandably anxious. They think, like I do, that this is likely to happen again.”